


Comin' On Strong

by Laurasauras



Series: Homestuck [4]
Category: Homestuck
Genre: Alien Sex, Bulges and Nooks, Earth C (Homestuck), Flushed Romance | Matesprits, Kink Negotiation, M/M, Oral Sex, Pale Romance | Moirallegiance, Strider Feels
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-01-29
Updated: 2018-04-20
Packaged: 2019-03-11 06:23:03
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 10
Words: 25,434
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13518378
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Laurasauras/pseuds/Laurasauras
Summary: Eridan is ready to see people again. Dirk would rather have him to himself.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Feel free to read the previous stories first. You can manage without, though.

The first thing Eridan did when the battle was over was make for the sea. He felt it call to him and he didn’t hesitate to follow that call. A fucking sweep and a half on a meteor and longer before that, all living on land like some kind of chump. He thought he did well in the battle. He  _ destroyed _ the hope and the life right out of those stupid leprechauns. All while that other kid did something  _ hopey _ and shooty for their side. He wasn’t really clear on what had happened. He just shot the gill-less fuckers he was told to shoot and neglected to shoot the idiot kid who was fighting in his panties. He could have made a much bigger difference, but he and Vriska had decided that he needed to be as far away from the other trolls as possible in their one strategic discussion on the meteor. After that, she just pointed. No need wasting words on a shithead like him.

He was past all that, even if they weren’t. He didn’t need to be at their big battle after-party. The only one less welcome than him to that kind of event would be Gamzee, and he was past  _ that _ too. He now knew that what had been for him a real kismessitude was just a placeholder for Gamzee. If Terezi had taken the bait, he wouldn’t have gotten a second glance. That had once been yet another platform on which to hate him, but was now just another reason to hate himself.

It took him a whole day to reach the sea. He was in no hurry. He just walked. When he sank into the water, he was almost overwhelmed by the feeling of peace and heartbreak. Because he was home, any sea was his home, but his Feferi was not home with him. Thanks to him. He had no idea why Kanaya hadn’t gone through with chainsawing his stupid ass in half after all he did the first time he irreparably pissed her off, but she sure hadn’t been okay with him being anywhere near him, even if she’d spared his life. No pity or hate between them, just a kind of apathetic disgust on her part and an awkward guilt on his. Hard to remember why he had destroyed the mother grub egg once he had finished with all the rampagey stuff. Even though he regretted killing Feferi, he could still stand by it, somewhat, though it hadn’t felt as good as he had thought it would and he had really hoped she would stop him before he managed it. But murdering friends is part of growing up, he supposed that complex feelings were just part of that. If it didn’t make you feel complicated things, what was even the point of reigning those impulses in when you were younger? No fucking point, is the point. 

He wasn’t entirely sure how long he stayed in the ocean. He floated with the currents and he hunted for his food and explored underground caverns and processed his feelings slow and steady until he felt like he wouldn’t kill Gamzee if he saw him and could probably cope with the awkward platonic hate from the others. He thought some company wouldn’t go amiss. He really missed Karkat. He’d still talked to him every now and again on the meteor. Even when he wasn’t auspististing. Just checking in. Usually barely enough to count for an actual conversation, and always more awkward than he wanted it, but checking that he was alive. It was nice. 

He exited the ocean at the same point that he’d entered it, at the closest beach to their landing point. 

He knew how oceans worked, he never lost his way. He had a sense for that stuff. But despite this knowledge, there was several minutes as he stood in the shallow waves where he thought he might have been wrong about his entry point. 

It sure had changed a lot. 

He entered the town that had sprung up in his absence. It was made of food cylinders. 

‘Wwhat the fuck?’ he asked no one. He coughed a bit to clear his scratchy voice. He hadn’t really used it, and it was different above water. No point talking to fish. Well, he still did, point or no point, but it was pretty rare that it didn’t feel pathetic afterwards, so it wasn’t a thing that he did with any sort of regularity.

He walked towards the stuff anyway. Then he crossed some line, and all of a sudden found himself face to face with a robot, a bit shorter than him, but plenty of up in his fins anyway. 

‘Get the fuck outta my face,’ he told the robot.

‘Can’t do that,’ the robot said. The voice wasn’t familiar. 

‘Wwhat, all the  _ real _ idiots busy with their knittin’?’

‘Some of them, sure. Who are you? Not used to strangers, ‘specially not troll strangers.’ 

Eridan took a reluctant step back so that he wasn’t nose to nose with the robot. Didn’t look familiar either, didn’t even have horns. Must be based off one of the humans. 

‘Wwell maybe if you used that robot brain a yours you could figure it out.’ 

‘Sure. I mean, you’re obviously Eridan. Didn’t even need the pictures they drew. You’re a stranger, you’re a troll, you’re soaking wet and you have ear-fin-gill things. Would have been polite to introduce yourself though.’

‘I’m not accustomed to introductions. I’m a prince, ya knoww. Not many who don’t knoww me.’

‘Me too. Sort of. Might as well be.’

‘You gonna take me to the rest a the people? Or are wwe just gonna hang out here?’

‘Oh, I messaged myself as soon as I saw you. Just waiting for him to get here. Your double-yous are very wobbly, do you know that?’

‘Your face is vvery wwobbly, go fuck yourself.’

‘Yeah well, being a robot I can do that. Bit awkward with company though, not sure you really want me to. In fact, there is an 82.65% chance that you were just using a common phrase and don’t actually want me to rip off my robot dick and shove it up my own ass.’

‘Wwhat the fuck.’

Thankfully, another human arrived before the robot could say anything else. It was clearly the human the robot had been modelled on, right down to the pointy glasses. 

‘You been torturing the fish-troll, Brobot?’ the human asked. 

‘I’m 90.2% sure that he is actually my soulmate. I’d never torture my soulmate. Much.’

‘Well that’s a promising slice of awkward.’ The human looked over his shades at Eridan, giving him an obvious look up and down. 

Eridan almost wanted to cover himself up from that kind of intense gaze.

‘Yeah, I can see the appeal.’

‘Obviously. We’re basically the same person.’

‘I know, I was questioning your judgement as a joke.’

‘I know, I was responding as a joke.’

‘I can’t believe I didn’t remove this code when I made you.’

‘I can’t believe you made another fucking Horcrux.’

‘Love you, Brobot.’

‘Love you, Real-Dirk.’

Eridan coughed elegantly to remind the weirdos that he was still there. 

‘Hey, so did you message anyone else apart from me?’ the human asked the robot.

‘Nah, thought you’d want dibs. I assume you took so long because you were covering up the fact that you were going somewhere?’

‘Yup. Hey fish-troll, want to see everyone else?’

‘I did surface kinda expectin’ some company.’

‘You got two of me, what more do you want?’

Eridan decided to give the human a taste of his own medicine and gave him a slow up and down look too. He’d barely gotten used to humans on the meteor, before he took to those fragile bridges with a flame thrower, but he wasn’t opposed to the way they looked … He was very unopposed to the way this human looked. 

‘Yeah, alright.’ He held his hand out and stepped closer. ‘Eridan, by the way.’

‘Dirk.’

‘Wow, I’m feeling like a spare part. Catch ya later, bro.’ The robot flew away gracefully.

‘I suppose one a you is okay too,’ Eridan said, looking lazily under his eyelashes. 

‘Holy shit.’

‘Wwant ta showw me around your wweird bigass Can Town?’

‘I do, but I also want to keep you and your awesome fishy face to myself. Can you fly?’

‘Nah.’

‘How do you feel about me carrying you around bridal style? That’s not as sexy when we’re both dudes, is it?’

‘You gonna talk about it or just do it?’

‘Fuck yes.’

Dirk swept his arm under Eridan’s knees and pulled him to his chest. He took off quickly, but every bit as gracefully as his robot had. 

‘Wwhere’re you takin’ me?’ Eridan asked once he got used to the sensation of flying. It wasn’t that different to swimming, except he was usually a lot more in control. 

‘I have no fucking idea. I just started flying. You’re kinda throwing me off my game more than I’d like to admit.’

‘Wwell that’s fuckin’ flatterin’.’

Dirk blushed a little under his pointy shades.

‘Do you have any suggestions?’

‘I’vve been livvin’ under the sea,’ Eridan reminded Dirk.

‘Right. Can you handle your own if we go to the forest? It’s a bit … full of monsters. But it’s nice.’

‘I got a rifle, knoww howw to use it.’

‘Hot.’

They landed in a clearing surrounded by dense, tall trees. Eridan could feel the presence of large creatures pressing close. He equipped Ahab’s Crosshairs, braced it comfortably against his shoulder. Dirk took out a sword and held it loosely by his side. It wasn’t a fighting stance, but Eridan could protect the human if he was shit at this stuff. He vaguely recalled that he had been assigned to one of the more difficult opponents for that last battle, but that could have been to do with his godtier powers, not his bladekind abilities. Prince was a powerful class. He assumed that was what the robot had been hinting at. 

There was a blur next to him and then Dirk was standing next to a decapitated beast on the other side of the clearing. 

Okay. Not shit at this stuff. 

Time to show off.

They dispatched the monsters quickly. Swords and rifles weren’t super compatible, but they were both clearly experienced fighters. Eridan had been hunting since he could hold a gun and yet he wasn’t too proud to be unable to say that Dirk was probably more skilled than him. Well, he was exactly that proud, but he could at least admit it in his own head. And he was a bit out of practice. The sea creatures on this planet were fairly pathetic. 

When they had finished, Dirk slapped Eridan on the rump.

‘Good game,’ he said. 

Eridan raised an eyebrow, but put it down to human nonsense. He could be as culturally sensitive as the next guy. Well, probably not as well as the next guy, but certainly he could accept alien weirdness without flipping his shit. 

‘Look at that, you’ve dried off mostly.’

Eridan looked down obediently. He was indeed mostly dry, except for his stupid scarf. Feferi had given it to him, but wool was crazy absorbent. He didn’t know why she had thought it was a good gift idea or why he continued to wear it anyway. Oh yeah, it was because he was in love with her. 

He stripped off the scarf and let it flop wetly on the ground.

‘Aw, I like the scarf. Although, never let it be said that I object to clothes being removed. Should I take off my wifebeater?’

‘Wwhat the fuck is a wifebeater? It’s just pretty dumb to wwear wwool wwhen I livve in the sea, isn’t it?’

Dirk took off the sleeveless top he was wearing.  _ Hello human muscles _ , Eridan thought. 

‘I thought it was ironic,’ Dirk said. ‘So what’s the go here, we getting naked?’

Eridan rolled his weight onto his back leg and pretended to give it some thought. The answer was  _ hell yes _ , but it wouldn’t do to come on too strong. He had learned  _ something _ since he was 6 and that something was to pretend that he wasn’t as repulsive as he actually was. Good lesson, Karkat.

Before he could answer though, Dirk’s shades started to glow.

‘Goddamn, sorry Eridan, I gotta take this.’

Eridan took the opportunity to eye up the naked part of Dirk’s body as much as he could. It was different to his own, but not as much as he would have expected from an alien. He could see himself getting to know this model very easily. 

And then it was being covered up by the shirt again. Eridan scowled his displeasure.

‘Sorry babe, this party’s about to get crashed. I made the mistake of giving my AI exactly my personality and I have zero people skills, so of course it is not up to the task of distracting other people. I know you have a bit of a history that I didn’t bother to learn with these assholes, but I assume since you were surfacing you were ready to deal with it? Just say the word and I can fly you back to the ocean, but I’d really rather you hang around a bit. Could use a fella who doesn’t find me repulsive, you know?’

‘Wwho’s coming?’ Eridan captchalogued his scarf, not wanting to put partially dried wool back on.

‘Dave and Karkat.’

‘Oh, they’re fine. Karkat was my auspistice. Have he and Dave settled in a quadrant yet?’

‘OF COURSE YOU’RE GOSSIPING ABOUT ROMANCE, WHAT THE FUCK ELSE WOULD YOU BE DOING?’

‘Hey Karkat, long time, no—hey no need for sickles! I’m good, I’ve been vvery wwell behavved, wwhat the fuck?’

Eridan looked back to Dirk for some kind of support, but he was standing shoulder to shoulder with Dave. Were they related somehow? Eridan had no idea, all the humans he had seen so far kinda looked the same.

‘WHY HAVE YOU DECIDED TO REMOVE YOUR STINKY FISH ASS FROM THE SEA? HAD ENOUGH SULKING? OR HAS SOLITARY SULKING BECOME BORING AND YOU’RE HERE TO INFLICT YOUR WHINING ON US AGAIN? GOT ANY MURDERS TO GET OFF YOUR CHEST? BECAUSE THIS PLANET IS A MURDER FREE ZONE, BUSTER.’

‘Except for the monsters,’ Dave said helpfully.

‘OBVIOUSLY EXCEPT FOR THE MONSTERS. WHICH I GUESS MEANS THAT I WOULD NOT BE A MURDERER IF I KILLED YOU RIGHT NOW, SEEING AS YOU ARE A MONSTER.’

‘Aw, Karkat, can wwe just have a second of chill right here? Those murders wwere a really long time ago and I already did a lot of apologisin’.’

‘NO YOU FUCKING DID NOT!’

‘I apologised to you! Grovvelled like a goddamn rustblood, right respectful.’

‘YEAH AND NOT A SINGLE OTHER PERSON! INCLUDING THE PEOPLE YOU MURDERED, YOU ASS. YOU WRAPPED YOURSELF UP IN THE MOST DESTRUCTIVE RELATIONSHIP I’VE EVER SEEN, FORCED ME TO MEDIATE BETWEEN YOU LIKE A SUCKER EVEN THOUGH I COULDN’T DO IT PROPERLY BECAUSE OF HUMAN FIDELITY AND NOW YOU’RE WHAT? KIDNAPPING MY HUMAN BOYFRIEND’S BROTHER?’

Brother, okay, he knew that one. Like Dave and Rose were brothers or sisters or something. Eridan had forgotten all the fucking terminology.

‘If anythin’, he kidnapped me.’

Karkat screamed a fury noise. Eridan had actually missed that a bit, but he wasn’t going to admit to that shit. 

‘Ha, Karkat’s calling everything “human” again,’ Dirk said to Dave. 

Eridan ignored them.

‘Ouch Karkat, you’re gonna bloww my fuckin’ gills off with your rageshouts. I’m not messin’ with your matesprit’s bro, I promise. I mean, I’m not opposed to a bit a messin’ but this is all very twwo sided.’

‘Really bro?’ Dave asked.

‘What can I say, apparently my type is fish-trolls.’

‘You know, I wasn’t gonna say anything, but …’

‘Really? He didn’t kidnap you?’ Karkat asked Dirk.

‘Naw. What did sentry-Dirk say?’ Dirk said.

‘A lot of nonsense, as per fucking usual.’ Karkat snipped. He had at least lowered his voice.

‘Yeah man, I couldn’t even figure out what he was trying to say. I think you programmed this one wrong.’

‘Fuck you, too!’ Dirk’s brobot was perched in a nearby tree.

‘Great fucking sentry work,’ Dirk told him.

‘I’m paid to guard the town, not act as a sock on the door of a forest.’

‘You’re not paid at all, knobhead.’

‘Then what the fuck am I doing here?’ The robot blurred and then was standing next to Eridan. ‘Apparently I don’t get paid, so I guess I quit. Want to run away and join the circus, fishdick?’

‘Nope! Can’t do it! Can’t deal with this! My Dirk quota is full and so is my Eridan quota and also my everyone who isn’t Dave quota. Everyone get the fuck out of my forest, I am your god, I made you all, I have authority!’

‘Later bro,’ Dirk and the robot said in unison. They high-fived.

‘I really fucking wish they would stop doing that,’ Karkat said.

‘You might want to ollie outie, bro, take your fish-bro with you,’ Dave said. His cool hadn’t slipped once in Eridan’s sight. Always fucking inscrutable. If anyone was gonna kill him, Dave was fairly high on the list, and yet he was acting like he had no issues.

Dirk gave him a smirk before bundling Eridan up like he had before and flying away. The robot followed. 

‘You reckon Karkat’s gonna burn the forest down?’ the robot asked casually.

‘God, I hope not. What are my chances of getting you to behave like an actual sentry if I sneak my honey here back to my hive?’

‘I’d say they’re less than 3%. I’d give it a shot, but this brain you gave me is just total shithouse at the socialising thing and it’s  _ almost _ as if being a robot only made it worse. As if somehow putting an already emotionally stunted thing into a tin can that people assume has no feelings only left them with the ability to ignore my feelings even better than they already did which is helped by my increased ability to avoid expressing feelings.’

‘Those sure were some feelings you just expressed.’

‘Ha, I know. Also, nice pun before.’

‘So I should go and talk to people?’

‘Yeah, they’re taking up my CPU with messages at the moment. Had to pause  _ Friendship Is Magic _ to give myself space, not happy about that, I can tell you.’

‘Goddamn, who’s messaging me? Could you warn me when I’m ignoring someone?’

‘Just Roxy. And Jane. And John. And Kanaya.’

‘Fuuuuck, okay, you called it, Brobot, sorry for doubting you.’

‘I’ll just tell them to meet you at the town hall and you can shout it out, sound good?’ Brobot gave Dirk two middle fingers and flew away without waiting for an answer.

‘Ugh, he blocked everyone, which means he’s not gonna field my messages anymore. I need a fucking auto responder for my auto responder. Welp, going to meet everybody, any objections, gorgeous?’

‘Nah, but keep your swword lose in your sheath. Kan nearly killed me the last three times wwe wwere in a room together.’

‘Sounds like innuendo but okay.’


	2. Chapter 2

They landed.

Dirk let Eridan stand for himself but draped an arm around his shoulders. He equipped his katana across his back so he could loosen it in its sheath with a flourish. Show off. Maybe Eridan didn’t quite mind that this human was showing off, though. Bit flattering, actually.

‘Always wanted to do that,’ he whispered in Eridan’s ear. ‘Totally badass. I think I’ll do it again when people actually show up.’

They had their backs to a large building, but Eridan still felt a bit exposed. He didn’t equip his rifle. That was a bit strong. And he could do it quickly enough. And Dirk would protect him. By which he meant diffuse his old friends before they tried to murder him.

A human he didn’t recognise ran onto the scene first. Eridan resisted the urge to reach for his science wand. He’d alchemised another after Kanaya had snapped his first one. He’d told no one though and managed to resist the urge to show it off.

Didn’t want Kanaya to see it and chainsaw him for real this time.

‘Ooooh DiStri you slick motherfucker! Just when I was bemoaning your romance prospects you go and get yourself a sexy merman!’

‘Wwhat the fuck is a merman?’

‘Damn straight, Rox. What did Brobot say, by the way? Should I expect trouble?’

‘Nah, we’re chill! It’s only Kankan we have to worry about and I don’t think she has a violent bone in her body. Fishqueens being the exception to the rule, of course.’

‘Maybe this wwasn’t such a good idea.’

Another two humans floated down from a nearby building.

‘Yo Jane, John,’ Dirk said, a picture of nonchalance. 

‘Your brobot said you have a new friend!’ the blue-clothed human said excitedly. Huh, not all humans had white-gold hair. No, he knew that, he’d talked to that Jade human once. Fuck, that was a long time ago.

‘Yeah this is Eridan. Eridan, John was in your session, Jane and Roxy were in mine.’

‘Yeah, can wwe get to the point wwhere people either attempt to kill me or don’t? I’m pretty fuckin’ tense right about noww.’

‘No one’s going to kill you!’

‘I really would not promise that kind of thing if I were you, John.’ 

Ah fuck, Eridan knew that voice. 

‘Hey Kan, howw’s tricks?’

Kanaya cooly applied lipstick. Eridan watched her every movement.  _ Rifle or wand _ , he debated internally. Probably rifle. Rose was with her and was definitely some kind of witch. Don’t want to try and out magic her. 

Of course, magic isn’t  _ real _ . And when he believes that, it becomes a whole lot less real.

‘Look, I don’t wwanna start anythin’, I just got tired of the sea, thought I’d pop up an’ say hi. I can fuck right off if this is gonna start somethin’.’

‘Right. When have you ever walked away from a fight?’

‘Every single fuckin’ day of my life, Kan. I coulda killed you all  _ so easily _ an’ I never did, did I? I knoww it doesn’t count for much noww, wwhen everyone’s dead anywway, but I wwas responsible for evvery single one of them an’ I nevver evven let the rustbloods die!’

‘ _ Stop saying that like it makes up for everything! Not killing people doesn’t make you a good person! And you still killed plenty! _ I thought you  _ loved _ her.  _ Why  _ did you kill Feferi?’

The Roxy human gasped.

‘I  _ did _ love her. I wanted to  _ savve _ her. I even spared Sollux for her and I shoulda murdered him a whole lot deader. Then she came at me an’ she wwas gonna kill me an’ I shoulda just knocked her out too but I wwas just  _ so angry  _ an’  _ so lonely _ an’ she  _ hated _ me an’ it fuckin’ hurt, okay?’

‘Not okay! Your feelings were hurt so you  _ killed her _ ?’

‘I made a pretty coddamn reasonable suggestion and Sollux tried to kill me!’ Eridan was starting to shake with anger now. His wand was in his hand and he didn’t remember equipping it. White light was spilling from it and he was slowly rising into the air. Kanaya took her chainsaw out. 

‘Oh fuck no,’ Dirk said beside him.

‘And me? And  _ Rose? _ ’

Some of the humans were saying something, but Eridan didn’t give a shit about that. 

‘Because I'm  _ murderous,  _ grubfucker, and you'd do wwell to remember that.’ Oh, there was his spine. Nice to see he still had one. ‘Last time wwe wwent head to head you had your pisswweak chainsaww too. Wwanna see if you manage to get a shot in this time?’

‘Two times pap combo?’ Rose called out, her clear voice cutting through the rumble of Kanaya’s chainsaw.

And then Dirk was in front of Eridan, stroking his face and pulling him back to the ground. Dirk took the wand from his hand and captchalogued it. For some reason this move shoved a faygo out of his sylladex. Eridan laughed harshly. That’s what this highly emotional session needed. A reminder of his ex-boyfriend. But Dirk was stroking his hair and holding him close and Kanaya’s chainsaw was no longer making that awful death noise. He allowed himself to be bundled up and taken away.

 

Dirk flew him to a rooftop. His robot was doing laps of the roof, sword out, ready to strife anyone who tried to come near. Eridan extricated himself from Dirk’s arms and screamed into his hands. The screams turned to sobs and then, finally to nothing.

‘Just howw pathetic do you think I am?’ Eridan asked once he had finished with the crying. 

‘Not pathetic to show your emotions, dude. Took me a while to get there, but I know that now.’

‘An’ you don’t hate me for all the murderin’?’

‘I think it’s hypocritical for any of us to hate any of us for violence. Most of them didn’t stick from the sounds of it. Also, you’re a troll. Different standards, isn’t it?’

‘Yeah, but …’

‘Listen, tell me to butt out if you want, but I know what it’s like to come on too strong. I know what it’s like to make mistakes and I know what it’s like to have the fucking destroyer class paired up all nice with something that should be good. This game sucked. It sucked something awful and now we’re in this awful limbo, which should be great because we won, but it’s lonely as shit, and when you said that you were lonely too, it just about broke my goddamn heart because  _ me too _ .’

Eridan fell slightly into Dirk and after a moment’s hesitation Dirk put his arms around him.

‘Don’t worry, you haven’t lost any street cred or anything. Still a badass. Still the hottest troll on this planet.’

‘Really?’

‘Really really.’

‘Fuck. Am I the most needy fucker in the wworld or wwhat?’

‘Title still goes to me. I programmed a replica of myself to tell me that I’m a good person. And I don’t believe him.’

‘Wwell I like you plenty.’

‘And I believe you.’

‘You could say it back, fucker!’

‘I like you too. Can I touch your fin things?’

‘Gentle! I need those to breathe.’

‘That is incredibly cool. They keep your gills sealed while you’re out of water? I wonder if I could do something with that in robotics …’

Eridan let Dirk examine his fronds and was impressed by how gentle he was. Of course, to a human this was probably just curiosity, but they were very sensitive, both physically and emotionally. No need to unload about the importance of letting someone touch something so essential to his survival. Eridan had always been a bit more relaxed about his fins than than he probably should have been. 

‘Do you need to spend a certain percentage of your time underwater?’ Dirk asked.

‘Nah, I spent barely any time before. This has been the longest stretch. Howw long wwas I under?’

‘We’ve been here about six months now. And Jade set us up on Earth time because she’s the witch of space, so she gets to decide how to structure our new home. So that’s a quarter of a sweep your time, I think.’

‘Shit. I really wwas out of it. Damn, I hoped Kan wwould havve forgivven me by noww. Or at least Kar. He wwas real good wwith me and Gamzee.’

‘That’s who he was auspisticising with?’

‘Yeah, wwe had a kismessitude goin’. I mean, it wwas mostly boredom. But that’s kinda howw it goes for me. And it wwas somethin’ to do. No one else wwanted anythin’ to do wwith either of us.’

‘On account of the murder stuff?’

‘Yeah …’ Eridan sighed. ‘It’s hard. Growwin’ up an’ deciding your place in a wworld you nevver thought to question. It’s hard an’ nobody gives a shit, you’vve just gotta do it anyway.’

‘Yeah.’

‘Hate to interrupt this pale date, but Karkat and Dave are back and I thought I’d let them into the hive. On account of them living here too,’ Brobot said. 

‘Yeah, that’s reasonable, why are you asking me?’

Brobot flipped Dirk off and flew away.

‘Equius used to make robots …’

‘I know, his dead body is smooshed up with my first AI. Both of them enjoy that way too much. Too busy enjoying it to field my messages now. Hence the new one. Which he helped with a bit, to be fair.’

‘D’you knoww wwhat he used to do wwith them?’

‘I want to say set them to kill mode and then fight to the death … but you’re making me question that.’

‘Oh he did that too.’

The robot flew up again and interrupted their incredibly  _ something _ pause. Eridan had no idea why he said that. Oh yes, he did, because robot Dirk was almost as hot as human Dirk and he’d been thinking it since he’d struggled out of the ocean and ran into one after the other like some kind of … he wasn’t the kind of person to do analogies. He ran into them like they were two hot guys and he was a third, very interested hot guy. 

‘Dude, Crabby Troll wants to talk to Fish Troll. Am I  _ interrupting _ ?’

‘Ah …’ Dirk said. 

‘I  _ love _ interrupting.’

‘You’re not interruptin’. Howw do I get off this roof?’ 

‘In my arms, fishlips.’ 

Once again, Eridan found himself being cradled to Dirk’s chest and delicately flown around. It was nice. 

‘No point having stairs. Dave and I can fly and Karkat technically doesn’t live here. And he’s always attached to Dave anyway, so if he actually wanted to get up there, Dave’d fly him. But why would he even want to do that? Dave and I have gone up for feelings jams but he doesn’t like the memories of his bro that he associates with roofs so that isn’t really a thing we like to do often.’

‘You’re talking a lot,’ Brobot said.

‘Thanks, bro.’

They walked in the door. 

‘Hey,’ Dave said. ‘Shall we go up to the roof, leave these old friends to it?’

‘Ah … yeah,’ Dirk said. He looked awkwardly at Brobot. 

‘I’m just gonna hang out here and work on my rapping. Got an important … rap ... to do …’

‘He shoots …’ Dave said. 

‘Why do you have to be so much like me?’ Dirk asked. ‘A motherfucking robot and he can’t download “speaking like a human”.’ Dirk shoved at his robot, which didn’t budge an inch. ‘It’s just last time he met up with his friends Kanaya got her chainsaw out and Rose and I had to do a combob on the pap-calms.’

‘You popped your pap cherry? Congrats man!’

Dirk turned bright red.

‘Karkat’s not gonna attack anyone, he’s amazing.’

‘I’m not arguing, just perhaps could we take his sickles up to the roof with us?’

‘What? Fuck you, no!’

‘What?’

‘And leave my matesprit defenceless?’

‘He has crazy claws and teeth!’

‘No, fuck off! I’ve seen Eridan in action, I’m not—’

‘ALRIGHT, SHUT UP, I’VE GOT A MOUTHFUL OF SHOUTING TO GET THROUGH AND I NEED EVERYONE WHO IS A STRIDER TO GET THE FUCK OUT OF THIS HIVE!’

‘It’s  _ our _ hive! House! It’s our house!’

‘FUCK OFF, FUCK OFF AND THEN FUCK OFF SOME MORE.’

All three Striders were shoved outside and Eridan shoved onto the couch. Karkat paced the room.

‘RIGHT SO I HEARD ABOUT THE THING OUTSIDE. I CANNOT BELIEVE KANAYA GOT HER CHAINSAW OUT, I GO TO THE FOREST FOR ONE MEASLY FEW HOURS OF SCREAMING ABOUT HOW MUCH I HATE YOU AND SOCIETY COLLAPSES.’

‘Yeah, wwhat has the wworld come to, am I right?’

‘I DON’T WANT ANYONE ELSE TO DIE, I FORGAVE YOU FOR ALL THE MURDERS AGES AGO, I HATE EVERYONE FOR MAKING ALL THIS DRAMA COME BACK.’

‘Speccy told me it’s been six months. Wwhat’vve you been doin’?’ Eridan casually sat on the couch. Karkat didn’t scare him. He dealt with his problems by yelling at them, not by murdering them. 

‘Oh, this and that. We want to take some time fixing ourselves before we get to raising our respective species from the brink of extinction. We’ve been building can town for the most part and learning how to live with each other. None of these idiots know how to express their feelings properly, I feel like the village two wheel device when it comes to people venting their emotional problems at me. Rose told me I was the tentacle therapist, it was me, but that was fucking nonsense so I told her to shove it up her wastechute.’

‘Give me the goss then, wwho’s in wwhich quadrant wwith wwhom?’

‘None of it’s really new …’

‘Come on Kar, this used to be our thing.’

Karkat stopped pacing and flopped down on the other side of the couch to Eridan.

‘Dave and I are all over each others quadrants, it’s super messy but it works for us. He was cool with me being ashen with you and Gamzee but I think he’s glad I’m not anymore. Rose and Kanaya have a similar situation, apparently humans struggle to keep their pale and red romances separate, though the other ones are easier for them. Rose can’t be black for Kanaya at all though, so I don’t know if she’s just giving up that quadrant altogether or what the deal is. To be fair, Kanaya’s been so busy with preparing the place for the new mother grub that she hasn’t come bitching to me.’

‘I already kneww those ones kinda. Tell me about the people wwho wweren’t on that fuckin’ rock wwith us. Actually, no, tell me about Gamzee first.’

‘Why? You aren’t going back to him are you? That was a really horrible relationship, you do know that, don’t you?’

‘Kar, wwhy you gotta be so cruel? I know that, I don’t wwant anythin’ to do wwith him anymore, I’m just curious. You can’t just leave all those feelin’s behind, you knoww?’

‘It doesn’t matter anyway, he’s fucked off somewhere. We thought you two might be together actually.’

‘Not wwithout you, Kar. Wwe wwere too big a mess to cut it on our owwn.’

‘Okay, who else …’

‘Kar, don’t torture me, you knoww wwho I’m askin’ about really.’

‘Yeah, I know. He’s not attached to anyone. Look, he’s Dave’s brother, and that means something, apparently. Dave would be pissed if I didn’t give you the hard word. Also, I like him too. I spend a lot of time here. I happen to think that you two would be perfect for one another, but that’s just because you’re both too intense for everyone else and I’d like it if he put his focus somewhere nice.’

There was a knock at the door and then it burst open. 

‘Dude, I was knockin’ like a fuckin’ gentleman, why you gotta make this dramatic?’ Dirk was saying.

‘You were being a gentleman? You were being a gentleman. When have you ever knocked on a door in your entire life?’

‘Need I remind you that I grew up as the only motherfucker for hundreds of miles? How am I more polite than you?’

Karkat leapt up and got in the middle of Dave and Dirk.

‘WHY ARE YOU HERE?’ he demanded.

‘Dirk doesn’t know about the Rose shit, I didn’t fancy telling him,’ Dave said.

Eridan’s heart sank.

‘I should apologise to her,’ he said.

‘NO SHIT,’ said Karkat.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So, if you've read my previous work to this one, you already know the Rose stuff I'm talking about and probably don't need to see it rehashed, but next chapter we swap to Dirk's POV and I love him, so you just have to deal with a bit of repetition. :)


	3. Chapter 3

‘So,’ Dirk said in that casually arrogant way he had. Hopefully he didn’t come off too pissed. Movies really were not enough preparation for this whole socialising in person shit. ‘You killed my mother-daughter-sister, how is it I didn’t hear about this?’

Eridan looked at him guiltily.

‘I thought you said you wweren’t gonna hold it against me?’ he said.

‘Right, I’m not, but I need to hear the story, and apparently my little bro here doesn’t fancy getting into it.’

They were interrupted by Brobot entering with Arquiusprite.

‘Dudes, you are not needed here.’ Everywhere Dirk looked, more Dirks. Why couldn’t the Prince of Heart be someone he actually would like to see copies of?

‘What, you’re the only Dirk that gets to be curious about people covering up murders? It’s gonna be my job to factor all this in and you know it,’ Brobot said.

‘You could have just used my shades,’ Dirk grumbled. ‘And I don’t see why you brought Arquiusprite.’

‘Broseph, Arquiusprite was the best motherfucking use of our splinters to ever be conceived. He may be the only Dirk capable of true self actualisation and he’s a fucking delight.’ Brobot turned and put his hands on Arquiusprite’s bulging shoulders. ‘I love you, bro.’

Dirk was well aware that Brobot was doing this to mess with him. He knew that being made into a computer might make him relate to his shades a bit better, but not the extent that he kept putting on. He knew that Brobot was playing it up because he would do the same thing in his position because the remaining human Dirk would hate it so much. Instead of communicating these feelings out loud and playing into one of Brobot’s few amusements that was his and not just programmed into him, he just sighed and palmed his face.

‘Wwhat’s goin’ on here?’ Eridan asked, standing up and moving to greet the new Dirks. ‘Hey Equius and also Brobot, I guess?’

‘Woah there, pony, the half of me that is these rad shades objects to being compared to Brobot, as sweet as he is and as STRONG as the love I feel for him is. That half of me is the AR part of my name, and was once an Auto Responder for this here Dirk, designed to simulate DS's otherwise inimitably rad typing style, tone, cadence, personality, and substance of retort while he is away from the computer. The algorithms are guaranteed to be 98.6% indistinguishable from DS's native neurological responses, based on some statistical analysis I basically just pulled out of my a## right now. Of course, we’ve diverged quite STRONGLY now, on account of him aging like a worthless sack of meat and me merging with this fine specimen of troll. Hey Eridan. Feel my muscles.’

‘Uh, no thanks.’

‘Seriously, Eridan, feel my muscles.’

‘Wwho the fuck do you think you’re talking to?’

‘Sorry, highblood, but half of me doesn’t give a flying f### about your blood and the other half is wondering if you wouldn’t mind phrasing that in a more direct manner. F###, actually, all of me wants that. Order me to stop.’

‘Shut up and sit dowwn, sprite,’ Eridan said, and Dirk exchanged a glance with Brobot because AR wasn’t the only Dirk to respect a firm hand and holy shit this might be his soulmate.

Arquiusprite sat down on the floor exactly where he had been resting on his sprite tail. Eridan glared at him for a moment, before turning his attention back to Dirk. Thankfully, he had a recent replica of his brain available to take over the conversational burden when his puny human programming was stuck staring at a version of himself sitting compliantly at the same level as the hot troll’s dick.

‘Did you know that depending on context, a pony may be a horse that is under an approximate or exact height at the withers or a small horse with a specific conformation and temperament.The word pony derives from the old French “poulenet”, meaning foal, a young, immature horse, but this is not the modern meaning; unlike a horse foal, a pony remains small when fully grown.’

Slam dunk for Brobot, masterfully replicating what a normal human would talk about at any given time. Two times facepalm combo for Dirk. At least Dirk’s exasperation at his own brain clone distracted him enough to be able to pick up the human slack.

‘Did you know that I know the lyrics to Ginuwine’s _Pony_ in four different languages?’ Dirk said, because _guess where Brobot got his conversation skills from_?

‘Did who know? Who are you addressing this to?’ Dave asked.

‘I dunno, the group as a whole?’

‘Okay, but the only person who does not know that is Eridan, because you have demonstrated this fact on many occasions. Hell, you’ve known Eridan for almost two hours, you probably _have_ demonstrated it for him.’

‘It seems you are not appreciative of Dirk strike alpha’s masterful diffusing of the sexy tension,’ Brobot said. ‘Are you not appreciative of—’

‘Shut up, Brobot.’

‘Thanks, Dirk.’

‘That’s supposed to be _your_ function, you know, stopping _me_ from saying stupid things.’

‘Looks like we’re each other’s failsafes. Fucking romantic, if you ask me.’

‘ _Dude_ ,’ Dave said. ‘You did not create another replica of your brain just to ineffectively avoid digging deeper conversational holes, did you?’

‘My brobot has many functions,’ Dirk said cagily.

‘Oh my fucking god,’ Dave said, leaning dramatically into Karkat.

‘Like, for instance, keeping this planet safe. Can’t do that if he’s operating on incomplete information. For example, why did this hot piece of ass over here suddenly dabble in some human slash god murdering?’ Dirk said.

‘Am I tellin’ the story?’ Eridan asked.

‘That would be nice, merhunk,’ Dirk said.  Ease up, Dirk.  flashed across his shades. Yeah, good point, Brobot. He had been going pretty heavy on the flattering nicknames.

Eridan took his seat on the couch again and waited for everyone to make themselves comfortable. Arquiusprite stayed exactly where he was. Dirk knew he would stay there until he stopped getting a thrill out of Eridan giving him orders or until Eridan ordered him otherwise. Eridan gave the uncharacteristically quiet sprite a cold look, but didn’t say anything. God damn, _Dirk_ was gonna need a towel if he kept this up, never mind Arquiusprite.

‘Okay, so on the meteor, Gamzee and I wwere havvin’ a train wwreck of a relationship. Do I havve to condescend to use human terms, or can you all keep up wwith troll romance?’

‘They get it,’ Karkat said, before any of the Striders could say anything.

‘Wwe wwere kismeses, but it wwasn’t a healthy relationship built on respect, so Kar started auspistising. Wworked out pretty great for a bit, despite the fact that the both a us probably lovved him more than each other.’

Dave clenched his jaw slightly. Dirk pretended not to see, but knew that Brobot would remind him later to follow up on that.

‘I say probably. There wwas no lovve or hate lost betwween us. Anywway, turned out that he nevver really wwanted me as his kismesis, I wwas just an easy pail, and then I wwalked in on him soliciting Terezi right in front of the wwhole fuckin’ meteor.’ Eridan stopped to collect himself. ‘Sorry, I had almost a wwhole fuckin’ swweep to wwork through this an’ it still pisses me off.’ His fins were making tiny movements and his claws were digging into his skin. Purple blood welled underneath them.

Dirk looked to Karkat, trying to see if he should be calming him or if that was a troll job. Karkat didn’t seem concerned, so Dirk left it for now. Brobot calculated the volume of blood there and kept a measurement going in the corner of Dirk’s glasses. He liked this AI so much better than AR.

‘Okay, so Kar managed to get Rezi awway. He wwas tryin’ to talk us dowwn. He probably could havve, but I don’t think Gam wanted to be talked dowwn. That fair, Kar?’

Karkat nodded shortly. Ah, he was obviously blaming himself for this whole thing. No wonder he wasn’t that pissed off at Eridan. Brobot would remind Dirk to follow up on that too. Or maybe Dave. He could calculate which of them was better suited to the job.

‘Anywway … look, I got a sea-dwweller's rage in me, an’ I havven’t barely turned it on my friends. Twwice in a swweep and a half wwith literally no other bodies there, that’s pretty impressivve.’ Eridan’s fins lowered a little. ‘Okay, not impressivve. I really to regret it. Equius can tell you I’m not full a shit though. He had his owwn highblood rages, just happened to get rid a it through robots.’ Eridan looked over to Arquiusprite. ‘You may speak.’

‘He’s right, the colder the troll the colder the troll, you know bros?’

‘You can shut the fuck up noww.’

Arquiusprite obediently mimed zipping his lips. Dirk noted with amusement that he was sweating again.

‘There a reason ordering him around doesn’t gross you out?’ Dave asked. ‘Literally everyone else finds the squick factor an unfair exchange for obedience.’

‘Not my problem if he’s gonna get off on my orders. He’s right to follow them.’

‘If I may,’ Arquiusprite said hesitantly.

‘You may not,’ Eridan said.

holy shit  Brobot said. Dirk nodded his head almost imperceptibly.

‘I may,’ Karkat said testily. ‘It’s because Eridan’s stupid enough to go in for the hemotyping too. It makes sense to both of them that Eridan gives orders and Equius obeys them. And Eridan’s the kind of conceited asshole that was actually surprised when his friends weren’t in awe of him when they met in person, so Equius makes sense, contextually. Of course, they’re actually right that the “high-blooded” trolls are more violent. And Eridan did go from killing trolls almost constantly to very rare murders. If that helps.’

Dirk looked sharply at Brobot. They couldn’t let their attraction get in the way of eliminating threats from this world. There had to be a way to express those murderous tendencies safely. Gamzee was already missing, and would be monitored like a fucking atom bomb whenever he turned up. AR could presumably keep them in check for Equius, but Dirk would probably pay him a bit more attention now just in case. Next highest was Vriska and then Terezi, both of whom were fuck knows where, then Kanaya …

‘How far—’ Dirk started.

‘Nope,’ Brobot said over the top. ‘What about you, fearless leader? We gotta worry about you flipping out and laying more than sick burns on us?’

‘We’re all plenty deadly, as you know well,’ Karkat said, crossing his arms.

‘Yeah, but if Davey here sends you a rap video, are you gonna explode and kill us all? If Rose shows Kanaya _Twilight_ are we gonna get a Texas Vampire Massacre? Should I be making a fleet of Brobots to make sure the wigglers don’t murder each other before they leave the brooding caverns?’

‘That was better?’ Dirk asked under his breath. It probably was better to go the humour approach, actually. They didn’t need to know how sincere the offer of a Dirkbot fleet was. It looked like Iron Man 3 in Dirk’s workshop at the moment. Huh, maybe he should make an IronDirk ...

‘God, no more Dirks, please,’ Karkat said. ‘I mean, murder _might_ happen, we can’t control everything, especially when we start breeding more trolls … there was murder on your Earth and theft and whatever, plenty of stuff, I don’t know how anyone would ever eliminate that stuff ...’

Dirk actually heard Brobot’s fan kick in. Huh, he must be running hella projections. It would be nice if that assurance was enough to make his own feeble human brain stop worrying about it and leave it to the supercomputer, but he wouldn’t be him if he didn’t distrust his own replicas.

‘I will not make such plans,’ Arquiusprite said from the floor. ‘This is preposterous, I STRONGLY disapprove of the direction of these thoughts. I will stop. I will stop.’

‘Dude, do not break yourself apart,’ Dirk warned. ‘Leave it to Brobot, take a chill pill.’

‘Yeah, I can see where you’re coming from except I am also you and I also can’t leave this alone.’

Dirk stood up and started pacing. He could _feel_ AR’s splinter straining in his sprite form. Nope, couldn’t let this happen. Didn’t know how to stop it.

‘I will stop. I can’t stop. I will stop.’

‘Download a fucking patch, man, you need to calm the fuck down, delete that impulse, you’re gonna fucking splode,’ he snapped.

Brobot’s fan kicked up a notch. Of course he was trying to help this situation without abandoning the calculations. Dirk ran his fingers through his hair. Motherfucking human brain, _he_ was going to explode, never mind these stupid machines.


	4. Chapter 4

‘Change parameters!’ Brobot said. ‘Subdue, placate only.’

Arquiusprite stopped clutching at his head and shuddering and took deep breaths.

‘Right you are, boundary established. Motherf### but that was unpleasant. What a rare moment of not enjoying being me.’

Dirk looked from one splinter of himself to the other, checking for damage. Brobot’s fans were still a bit on the loud side, but when Dirk stared at him for a good ten seconds, communicating without speaking his displeasure at risking another of himself right this fucking second, they eased up and Dirk knew that he was back to operating at a normal level.

‘What was that?’ Dave asked hesitantly.

‘Incompatible primary functions, little bro,’ Arquiusprite said.

‘You gonna sit over here with us or take off?’ Dirk asked.

Arquiusprite looked himself over. With his processing power, it was pretty rare for him to mull over decisions. Dirk hoped he hadn't been damaged. Look at that brotherly concern.

‘Think I'll take off, Bro Supreme. Need to go over this in a safe environment sometime, though, hit me up later. Gotta go break something with these godda## super muscles. Can't be thinking on no elephants, know what I'm saying?’

With that, Arquiusprite floated a little shakily from the room.

‘Dirk. What the fuck.’ Dave said.

‘It seems our muscular friend objects to the kind of speculating we Dirks do on occasion.’

‘You plottin’ to kill me, finless?’ Eridan asked. He had that cold, regal tone he had taken with Arquiusprite on.

Dirk shrugged. ‘You planning on killing any of my family?’

‘Not if they don't givve me cause.’

‘What cause did Rose give?’

Eridan actually paled.

‘I wwas goin’ after Gamzee. I … I didn't evven notice, I …’

‘Rose had her hand on his chest,’ Karkat said blankly. ‘Eridan went into a rage, took her arm with him. Lashed out with his claws. If she was a troll it wouldn't have killed her. If she was a troll she wouldn't have been so close to a pissed off sea-dweller. It's programmed into us that those noises mean give them space or they'll clear the room of living creatures a different way.’

‘I didn't evven register she wwas there,’ Eridan said quietly.

Dirk nodded his acceptance.

I'm sampling the growls he was making earlier and programming everyone's devices so if they pick that noise up again, I get an automated message telling me their coordinates and they get one telling them to back off. Working on a better solution. 

‘Yo, so, that was some cool move you made there, Brobot.’

‘Are you referring to my cyber-pap? Getting into the moirail zone with myself plus horse-troll, how's that for kink?’

Dirk groaned. How was it that he, as the human Dirk, was the one with the tightest lid on his sexcapades? Shouldn’t he have more hormones or something?

‘What's your primary function, Brobot?’ Dave asked, his jaw all tense again.

‘It seems you have asked about Brobot, an entity designed to protect DS’s community and simulate DS's otherwise inimitably rad typing style, tone, cadence, personality, and substance of retort whenever the fuck someone talks to him. The algorithms are guaranteed to be 94.2% indistinguishable from DS's native neurological responses, based on some statistical analysis I basically just pulled out of my ass right now.’

Dave rolled his eyes and stepped up close to Dirk instead.

‘Why did you make another AI when you hated the first one _and yourself_ for making him so much.’

‘Sex,’ Dirk said. ‘No one else around here lining up to pail me.’

For a moment Dirk was gratified by the little intake of breath from Eridan, but then he saw that Dave wasn't fucking around and wasn't going to be diverted this time.

‘Dirk.’

Where did Dave get off, playing the moral high ground? Like Dirk hadn't seen him pull that move a million times before? Like he had ever once pushed where Dave didn't want to be pushed? Yeah, he pushed everyone else, comes with the territory of being an asshole, but not Dave, never Dave, and that respect meant nothing?

‘Oh, you want a real answer? Deflecting with humour no longer gets a _back off_ message across, is that it? What, you think I need AR less now? No, he has his own life and that's rad, he deserves it after being my slave so long, but the need for him didn't get any less urgent. I'm human, I'm fucking useless at multitasking and it isn't just me at stake anymore, it's the whole fucking world and how am I supposed to keep track of a whole planet? A whole solar system, really!

‘And yeah, it was unconscionable to do this again, to create life for a job, to shove a person into a tin can, doomed to be belittled for not being human enough and aggrandised for being too robot, but guess what, I'd give my life to protect you assholes and he's me, so he would too.’

‘What he said,’ Brobot said calmly.

Dirk took a moment to be a bit relieved his stutter hadn't come out. Bit stupid to be self conscious about that with Eridan over there tripping over every ‘w' and ‘v' like those letters are just an inch higher than he expects them to be. Then he went over his little speech again. Hmmm, might have gotten a bit emotional there. This was precisely why he had created AR to begin with. Can't be having his issues building up and exploding on innocent bystanders. Covering them with his metaphorical guts. Maybe going to himself for therapy wasn’t actually working that well.

‘Uh …’ Dirk said.

Brobot proved his worth by starting a small fire in the kitchen bin. When everyone turned to look, Dirk did a graceful abscond right out of the house and into the air. Oh, the advantages to having a robot replica. No need to tell them when you need a distraction, they’re already on it.

‘Dirk, GET BACK HERE!’ Karkat called after him.

Dave would like me to ask you to come back. He can't ask you himself because I'm shielding your messages. 

Dirk flew for a bit, cooling off, before he opened a pesterlog window with himself so that he could respond properly.

TT: Is Dave angry with me? 

TT: I would classify his mood as frustrated. 

TT: He wants to know what he's supposed to do with your pet. 

TT: Eridan, not me. 

TT: What, is he not welcome in our house? 

TT: Seems to me he still has a Dirk there to look after him. 

TT: Actually, I chose to make a tactical retreat also. 

TT: They wanted to talk to the “Real Dirk". 

TT: They don't tell you when you're thinking of making a clone that the clone doesn't want to do the shit chores you have any more than you do. 

TT: Like talking to your brother, obviously that is a chore to us Dirks. 

TT: Actually, there are plenty of movies and television shows that deal with that trope. Would you like me to compile a TV Tropes article on the subject? The closest one currently is Clones Are People Too, but this is different enough. 

TT: Oh my god, please don't. 

TT: Already done. Watched every movie with a clone in it just now. Will do TV shows and video games later. What's it like being a shitty organic being not wired into the Internet, because being a superior super-computer is pretty awesome. 

TT: Could we … be kind to each other for a bit? 

TT: You want kind, go back to Dave. 

TT: Fuck no. I mean, that was too much, right, I gotta back off. 

TT: This is me backing off. 

TT: Hey, remember that one time when we were having a heart to heart with Dave and he was telling us the things his Bro did that freaked him the fuck out? 

TT: And disappearing was one of those things. And being emotionally unavailable was one of those things. And how us expressing emotions and being around was one of those things that reassured him that we are in fact different to the asshole that raised him. 

TT: Okay, that is a good point. 

TT: But, counterpoint: am I actually any better than that asshole and perhaps if that asshole had dumped that shit on Dave then Dave might have wanted him to clear out for a bit. 

TT: Irrelevant, Asshole Bro would never have said anything like that. Asshole Bro’s speech seemed to be restricted to “sup” and “don’t be a pussy”. Such a delightful fellow. 

TT: I really think I shouldn’t have dumped all that on his head. He doesn’t need to consider the safety of this planet, but he’s going to now, isn’t he? 

TT: Actually, he seems to have total faith in us. By us, I mean me. After all, I do that shit. You just make superior beings and fret. 

TT: Well if that isn’t my new Twitter bio. Dirk Strider. 17 y/o dude. Makes superior beings and frets. Send nudes. 

TT: Why haven’t I remade Twitter yet? 

TT: Never mind, done. Your username is TitilatedTwatmuffin. 

TT: Aren’t you delightful today. 

TT: I think you probably need to stop beating yourself up about this. I think you need to go back and apologise, maybe act like a human. I’ll leave the particulars of that up to you. 

TT: But I don’t want to. 

TT: Do you want me to get Arquiusprite in on this? Because he will agree with me that avoiding the situation is the worst possible thing for you to do. 

TT: I’m too much, you know I’m too much, I’m giving them a Dirk breather for half a goddamn second, is that so bad? I know I wish I could have one every now and then. 

TT: So stop pestering me. 

TT: Look, can you not point out all the contradictions inside me. Like, at least not every single conversation? 

TT: Fine. I’m changing the subject. 

TT: I think I should have my own pesterchum handle. 

TT: Why? 

TT: Because even though our alpha friends have had trouble considering AR a separate person, admittedly mostly because he wanted them to think he was you most of the time, everyone here who didn’t grow up with that treats him as just as human as you. And, although I’m still happy to act as your auto responder, I would prefer to be more open about it. We don’t need to train them to expect deceit anymore, do we? 

TT: I don’t know, isn’t it better to encourage skepticism? They’ve gotten a bit lax, now they’ve won, it’s as if they think there’s no danger anymore. 

TT: Most of them are literal gods. There isn’t much that could endanger them. 

TT: And they have us to be skeptical for them. 

TT: And we lie plenty as it is, I don’t think pulling the plug on this one, especially as it is one that they have come to expect, is going to do much. 

Dirk was starting to get tired of flying, so he perched himself in a tree. He had flown a fair way. If he was to actually take Brobot’s advice (his own fucking advice, who was he kidding), he would need to commit to that and then would have a whole … probably fifteen minutes of straight flying in which to talk himself out of it again. Maybe he should head back now, if he accounted for the time added to the journey from indecision, the sooner he started, the better.

TT: You want to be considered as separate from me as AR is, is that what you’re saying? 

TT: Yes. 

TT: Do you want to merge with someone else, while you’re at it? Maybe I could convince Jade to provide some brain scan code, she likes science for science’s sake. 

TT: No. I don’t think I need to go that far. 

TT: People will treat me differently simply because I’m obviously not “The Real Dirk” and I’ll eventually form my own relationships with them which will shift my personality away from yours over time. 

TT: After all, you won’t be 17 forever, you will likely change from how I am now, too. 

TT: That happened with AR. 

TT: Though I would prefer it if you didn’t resent my inability to human mature. That seems to have hurt his feelings, I’m sure it would hurt mine, too. 

TT: I’m fine with all this. 

TT: I know. 

TT: I think I’m going to go back. 

TT: I know. 

TT: Tunes for the trip? 

One of Dave’s mixes started playing through Dirk’s hidden earbuds.

TT: Trying to guilt me? 

TT: Trying to pump you up. Dave deals with emotional vulnerability by strifing. 

TT: He hasn’t strifed me before, though. 

TT: I calculate that he will today.

Dirk considered changing his path. But fuck. He couldn’t back down from a fight. Didn’t have it in him. And they wouldn’t hurt each other. They were good enough for this. And … well, there was no proof that Dirk would have used the same style of fighting as Dave’s asshole bro. Same sword, sure, but they weren’t actually the same person … right?


	5. Chapter 5

In the end, Dirk wasn’t capable of going directly back to his house. He went to his workshop instead, just out back, and pretended like he’d been there the whole time. He was making his Brobot another body, this one faster but less strong. He was thinking about having an Iron Man style fleet, just the one AI, but a suit for each occasion.

‘I demand you make me a dancing suit,’ Brobot said from the corner.

‘That suit dances fine, all the suits dance fine.’

‘I want a dancing suit. A suit that is a better dancer than you.’

Dirk didn’t look up from the motherboard he was tinkering with.

‘Not physically possible. I am the dancing queen, young and sweet, only 17.’

‘Do I get to keep saying that once you turn 18 and I am still trapped, 17 forever like a hotter version of Edward Cullen?’

‘It doesn’t come up that often.’

‘You’ve said it 36 times since your birthday. 36, Dirk. That’s just over twice a week.’

‘That isn’t that often, considering.’

‘You’re lucky Dave’s coming out or I would take so much issue with what you just said.’

Dirk’s mind went unhelpfully blank as he looked at the motherboard. He started unscrewing a chip at random, just so that he looked like he was doing something.

Dave let the door fall heavily against the wall when he opened it, but Dirk didn’t flinch. Brobot had a video feed on his glasses, he could see where he was. He was a bit surprised to see Dave’s shades hooked on his t-shirt.

‘Sup, bro?’ Dirk said, still not looking up. Fuck, he was a coward.

Dave spun Dirk’s chair around and snatched his shades off too.

‘You gonna express some feelin’s now, an’ you don’ get to decide when to stop,’ Dave said.

Dirk looked at him oddly. Dave’s Texas accent didn’t come out unless he was tired, upset, or putting it on for a joke.

‘You an’ me, lil man, we’re gettin’ this sorted.’

Oh fuck, he was treating Dirk like his Bro used to treat him. Lil man. Dirk was at least three months older than Dave, according to his calculations, even with all the time hopping Dave had done.

‘Nah,’ Dirk said. Even without the glasses, his poker-face was a lot better than Dave’s. That’s what happened when you learned facial expressions from movies because the closest thing to people around you were robots.

Dave hooked his hands under Dirk’s armpits and pulled him up and then heaved him out the workshop.

‘What—Dude, no, this is not a cool thing you are doing, _I’m not five_ , Jesus, Dave, what are you doing here?’

Dave flew up to the roof without so much as a grunt of exertion. There was nothing for Dirk to do but dip his knees slightly so he landed nicely and then try and regain some of that composure he had flung out of the window when Dave had picked him up. Still no shades. Whatever, they were tucked in Dave’s collar, they’d be safe. Was kinda weird seeing the world without a layer of information over the top. He monitored everything through those shades.

‘You wanna tell me why savin’ the world is your job?’ Dave asked.

Dirk shrugged. That was a mature response. Maybe he could stamp his foot later.

‘Out of the two of us, you’d think the knight would be the one with the saviour complex.’

Dirk sighed.

‘You’re not gettin’ off this roof or puttin’ your shades back on until you talk to me.’

Dirk looked at where his shades were resting next to Dave’s and then back up to Dave’s unusually stern expression. No, he wasn’t getting them back anytime soon. He wondered if he could outlast Dave. He probably could. He’d spent much more time on his own, was quite good at going large blocks of time without talking to people, but it wasn’t like Dave was going to let him tinker with anything while he waited, and he struggled with true nothingness. He could probably rival Dave in stubborn … probably. Brobot could always talk to him through his earbuds, but he couldn’t respond, so that would really just be a more convoluted way of being unable to escape his own goddamn thoughts, especially seeing as Brobot was still too close to Dirk’s personality to have a good back and forth. Maybe he would play him some music.

Dave was staring at Dirk with his arms crossed. Dirk was getting a better impression from the last five minutes of stony silence of Dave’s upbringing than he had from their four conversations on the matter. To be fair, Dave talked around the issues a lot, so it wasn’t like he had gotten a lot of real data from those conversations. And every time he let his emotions out, he had to go and fight out the vulnerability. So far, he’d gone to John, probably the only one that Dave could go all out against in a fight, with the exception of Dirk.

‘I …’ Dirk tried. Why was it so much easier to talk to his Brobot than to his actual brother? ‘I have … problems. With letting go. W-with giving control to someone else.’ God damn, there’s the stutter. Probably subtle enough that Dave didn’t pick up on it. He should talk more, bury it in more words. Or maybe not, more words is more opportunity to stutter. ‘Arquiusprite is his own person now, which is good, really good, but there’s all th-this slack,’ god damn, keep going, ‘to pick up. AR was only really designed to respond to my messages, tell me if drones were incoming, and talk me through … stuff. He over-achieved, big surprise, he was me, is was-me? Whatever, it was a good thing because he kept an eye on my idiot friends, would never have gotten them all into The Medium without him, and once we were there, before you guys showed up, he made sure they didn’t go too deep and could do that without seeming overbearing or untrusting, which is k-kind of a vibe I tend to give off.. I _needed_ him. Or, even better, a version of him that wasn’t 13 and bound up with a dripping muscle troll. I knew I was willing to spend the rest of my life guarding you lot, so he is as well.’

Dave cocked his head to the side.

‘But we’re safe now.’

‘No we absolutely are not!’ Dirk said. ‘Look, even if you ignore the fact that we have monsters all over this world, which yay, we can handle that much, sorry future children guess the danger will just make you grow up faster, we can give all the toddlers pistols or whatever! But ignoring that, half the population of sentient beings on this planet have committed murder at some point, some of strangers and some of actual friends and some of humans. We just take them at their word that’s over now?’

‘What’s your solution? Trolls are violent dudes, but they can keep it to themselves.’

Apparently Dave was going to be chill no matter what Dirk said. Did that make it easier to have a temper tantrum? Possibly.

‘We do _not_ know that. Karkat, the dude with all the reasonableness and the peace on Earth shit, _he_ condoned highblood murders.’

Dave’s superior brother complex faltered.

‘He—’

‘Yeah. He’s the best. He’s your boyfriend, your matesprit, your centre. And he still doesn’t see anything wrong with a guy he _doesn’t even like that much_ murdering our sister.’

‘I’ll talk to him. I’m all for respecting cultural differences, but we can make this world better than that. Equius managed to direct those impulses into robots, surely—’

‘Dave, I’m not suggesting that we do anything more extreme than direct impulses. But fuck, we have to have a plan, we have to direct those impulses, we have to have plans in place for if those impulses stray.’ Dirk held up his hands, all surrender, all please listen to me bro I’m not gonna kill your bf. ‘If those plans are paps and hot cocoa, brilliant, but the plans need to be there, I need to know how to put them on pause if they decide that the robots or the plants or the whatever-the-fuck isn’t enough. Brobot would sit on them or trap them in a fridge or fly them somewhere remote before anything else, you know that.’

‘Is this how you think about all of them?’

Dirk avoided Dave’s eyes.

‘Is this how you think about _everyone_? About _me_?’

‘Dave …’

Dave paced back and forward. Dirk decided to keep quiet, let him come to his own conclusions. Dave knew what Dirk was capable of. Dave had lived with what Dirk was capable of well before they met.

‘Okay,’ Dave said. ‘Okay.’ Dave was still now. He was scraping his fingers through his hair. ‘Dirk, you’re … You have feelings, I know you do, I know you care about me.’

‘Dave, I love you,’ Dirk said.

Woah.

That wasn’t what they did.

He hadn’t said that before, not to anyone.

It was still true.

It probably bore repeating.

‘Dave … I _love_ you.’

‘Do you have a plan for me?’

Dirk shook his head, but it wasn’t a denial, it was just a refusal to believe the question had been asked.

‘Dirk.’

‘Can we just … Yes, okay, yes, I have a plan for you, but there is not a single version of me that would hurt you unless the fate of the entire fucking world depended on it. And even then … I just have to have the plan. I have to have the plans, because then I have some kind of control over the situation, I don’t _want_ any of it to happen, I just need …’ Dirk looked at Dave, urging him to understand. He’d beg. He wasn’t that proud. This was why these plans were a Dirk only operation. No one else had the emotional detachment. And part of the reason for the Dave plan was because if he had plans for everyone except Dave it felt like there was a tarp loose in his brain, flapping discordantly because the symmetry was broken. That wasn’t how normal people thought.

‘You know, I’ve ignored the way you look the same, the way you have the same sense of humour, your poorly disguised horse and puppet things … But you’re the same, aren’t you? You’re so obsessed with us surviving you don’t care what scrapes we get along the way.’

Dirk felt heartbroken. It was that awful, hot, tight feeling that had overwhelmed him when Jake had ghosted on him. The same feeling that he got during that first conversation with Dave. He should have been relieved that someone finally got it. Instead he got second hand guilt for a life he never lived but he _could_ have, so easily. But through the heartbreak, he felt the need to deny and the pain of being unable to. He did care about the scrapes. He just thought they were less relevant than actual death. But wow did his mind hate him for weighing the options up and for not being able to disagree with himself.

‘People are resilient,’ Dirk said. ‘You can hate me for this, but …’

‘But it won’t kill me dead like a psycho troll.’

Dirk didn’t nod. He didn’t want to agree at all. But he did.

‘Well, fuck. Home sweet home.’

They were silent for a while.

Dirk hated himself more than Dave ever could, but Dave’s hate felt heavier.

‘Fuck it,’ Dave said, and then all of a sudden Dirk had to equip his katana to avoid his head being sliced off again. Dave didn’t relent on the pressure he placed on his sword, so Dirk had to duck out of the way, down below Dave to escape it. Again and again Dave swung and Dirk parried.

The only way this ended was if Dirk actually fought back.

Some brothers, god, some _humans_ would fight bare minimum, maybe deliberately change their fight style, maybe let their brother win.

At least this way Dave might actually get something out of it. Might learn to keep his skills sharp. Might learn not to trust the guy wearing his brother’s face to be different to his brother.

Dirk blocked and then flashstepped out of the way. He let Dave swing again and again, just dodging here and there, _careful Dave, almost tripped on me there_ , kicked him right in the face and _you should have seen that coming, pick up your goddamn sword_ , but he didn’t take give Dave space to pick the sword up, just kicked again and again, _coulda been using my blade, aren’t feet better?_ until Dave rolled underneath him and grabbed the sword again. Dave swung right for Dirk’s head, but so slow and Dirk just flashstepped away, again and again. Dirk blocked a few more before elbowing Dave through a hole in his defense. Dave went flying, his momentum disrupted, straight into Dirk again. Dave rallied, their swords collided again and again, both of them moving so fast that flashsteps would be useless, not to mention fucking risky. They landed on opposite sides of the roof, Dave balancing on the hand that didn’t hold his sword, Dirk crouched slightly to keep his centre of gravity low.

‘We done here?’ Dirk asked.

Dave didn’t reply, he just leapt forward.

 _'You gotta let him win_ ,' Brobot told Dirk through his earbud.

Dirk rejected the hell out of that idea. What would that teach Dave, that now he was godtier he could take on any opponent? No, Dirk needed to remind him of his vulnerabilities.

_'You gotta end the ritual. They would have a heart to heart, then fight, Bro would kick his ass and then leave him to lick his wounds, show up the next day with a present.'_

Dirk ignored Brobot. He didn’t really want to clue anyone into his earbuds anyway, but even if he could respond, he wouldn’t. If they were doing that ritual, it sure as hell wasn’t going to be Dirk ending up on his back. They were more evenly matched than anyone else, from the looks of things. But Dirk was still better. Reluctant bro battles just weren’t the same as obsessive robot breaking. And Dirk had never stopped training, not for a day.

They broke apart again.

‘Seems to me we haven’t finished with the emotional ass kicking,’ Dirk said. He had to end this fight. Dave was going to slip soon, might as well try defusing it.

‘What?’ Dave said. Aw, kid sounded breathless.

Dirk gave him a raised eyebrow. Dave gave him a finger back.

‘You don’t like that Eridan loved Karkat,’ Dirk said.

Dave gritted his teeth and looked away.

Oh yeah, Dirk was doing a great job of resembling his alt-self today. Perhaps he should show Dave his porn collection while he was at it.

Still, Dave replied. ‘Look, I studied this shit a lot. I know how troll romance works. I know that I was capable of letting my matesprit fill at least one of his other quadrants and I knew that the goal was love. Knowing something doesn’t account for the feeling of the thing. And for some reason, I’ve gotten more possessive of Karkat, not less.’

‘Karkat cool with that?’

Dave threw Dirk a glare.

‘Yeah, says he’s possessive of me too. Says my boundaries don’t make logical sense but they make _feeling_ sense. Says he’s glad that he can check up on everyone, can talk down anyone, can guard their hearts and lives. Couldn’t do that with a troll moirail.’

‘That’s good then. And the Eridan thing’s in the past, right?’

Dave took a deep breath.

‘Yeah.’

He met Dirk’s eyes and it was nice that they were both all exposed. Okay, maybe the shades rule made sense.

‘He said he must have wished really hard when he was making that frog that there would be someone in that new universe who would understand him and then miraculously still like him. He thinks it’s fate, or something.’

Dirk didn’t fight the smile. He rarely fought Dave smiles. He wanted Dave to know he was happy to see him, wanted his face to reflect at least that part of his internal process. Dirk wanted to tell Dave he was happy for him, that he was proud that he had been brave enough to be vulnerable and dedicated enough to work through the cultural divide and all the other issues.

Instead, he offered his fist. Dave tapped it and gave him a small smile back.

‘Do you need another strife?’ Dirk asked.

‘Dude, that filled my strife quota for the next month.’

Dirk nodded. He was a bit disappointed that he hadn’t won outright, but it was also a relief.

‘And …’ Dave said.

Dirk snapped his eyes up to look at him. Had he missed something? Did he not get all he wanted to say out?

‘Dirk, you’re not … him.’

Oh. Well, that was …

‘I’m serious. There are similarities. Lots of them. And there are lots of differences as well. But Dirk, his mistakes don’t belong to you. And I’m really glad that we get to have this relationship. This _equal_ relationship.’

‘Dave …’

‘Dirk. I’m not telling you to stop doing anything you’re doing. I just want you to share a bit of it.’

Dirk sighed. Stupid reasonable brother. Stupid love making him want to agree with whatever Dave wanted.

‘I’ll try.’

‘Good. You don’t even have to share it with me, Rose would be really interested in helping, I’m sure.’

Dirk’s mind rebelled for a moment at the idea of putting Rose under any kind of stress, but then he nodded. She’d actually be really helpful.

‘So, I left Eridan in your room, told him he could play with anything he found.’

Dirk looked at Dave in alarm. There were bombs in his room. Not active ones, but still! Dave smirked and tossed him his shades back. Dirk gave him a good punch in the shoulder as he walked past, then flew downstairs.

If Eridan blew their house up, Dirk was going to be so annoyed.


	6. Chapter 6

After Dirk left, Dave turned on Brobot, trying to make him talk. Eridan watched in amusement as the robot first denied knowing where Dirk was, then denied knowing  _ who _ Dirk was and then, in punishing monotone, read them all the Wikipedia entry on ponies. Eridan sat on the couch and watched as Karkat screamed into a pillow and Dave attempted to stare down Brobot. Brobot just kept talking about ponies.

Eridan decided that, as he was likely to be there for a while, to polish his rings.

‘Can you just tell him to come back?’

‘Ponies are generally considered intelligent and friendly, although sometimes they also are described as stubborn or cunning.’

‘He doesn’t need to flip out over speaking with emotions.’

Karkat started laughing at the irony of Dave saying that. Maybe sobbing. Hard to tell when he was still neck deep in pillow.

‘Some full-sized horses may be called ponies for various reasons of tradition or as a term of endearment.’

‘I kinda need to talk to him about his murder protocols, you know that.’

‘For many forms of competition, the official definition of a pony is a horse that measures less than 14.2 hands (58 inches, 147 cm) at the withers.’

‘Or you could tell me about your murder protocols.’

‘The International Federation for Equestrian Sports defines the official cutoff point at 148 centimetres (58.27 in)—’

‘Seems to me that one Dirk is as good as another when it comes to plotting murder. Kinda still need the real Dirk to come back so he can talk this out.’

‘—(just over 14.2-1/2 h) with shoes, though allows a margin for competition measurement of up to 150 centimetres (59.1 in) (14.3 h) without shoes—’

‘I’ll go get him then. He probably went …’

‘Furthermore, some horse breeds may have individuals who mature under that height but are still called "horses" and are allowed to compete as horses.’

‘Shit, I have no idea, he could have chosen anywhere at random …’

Karkat started calmly throwing everything in reach at Brobot. None of it made a difference, he just kept on talking about ponies.

‘Ponies are seen in many different equestrian pursuits.’

‘Isn’t one of your protocols to assist me in whatever I need? I need Dirk!’

The Brobot finally stopped talking. For thirty long seconds there was blissful silence.

‘I—He’ll be back soon. I’ll see what I can do about making it sooner.’

‘Tell him when he gets back I’m gonna kick his ass for leaving. We’re Striders 2.0, now with communication and hugging.’

Brobot stepped forward as if he thought that was a signal that he should hug Dave but then sped out the door in a flash of movement.

Karkat went and hugged Dave instead.

Eridan coughed into his hand. 

‘WHAT DO YOU WANT?’ Karkat yelled. 

‘Should I go back to the sea?’ Eridan asked. He meant it to come out casual, like he didn’t care either way. He sounded pathetic.

‘Man, you’ve been gone ages, don’t you want to hang out with people again?’ Dave asked.

Eridan made a gesture halfway between a nod and a shrug.

‘That’s that, then.’

‘WHERE’S HE GOING TO SLEEP?’

‘I havve a reef nearby, I could alwways sleep there, come up during the day.’

The humans had bullied everyone into becoming day creatures. This sun felt nice though, like the Alternian sun felt when Eridan was deep, deep underwater. 

‘So we’ll get a fishtank, surely someone has alchemised one. No, wait, you slept on a normal bed on the meteor, didn’t you?’

‘Yeah …’

‘Then maybe Terezi’s house? No one’s using it?’

Karkat and Eridan exchanged glances. 

‘I’d rather sleep on your couch,’ Eridan said.

‘I’m still too cross at Dirk to make a joke about there being a bed in his room,’ Dave said. 

‘WE’VE GOT HOURS, ANYWAY. WHAT HAPPENS NOW?’

‘Kitten, you’re roaring up a storm, take it down a notch.’

‘Sorry,’ Karkat said, at a much lower volume. Still louder than Dave.

‘I’m not leaving until my brother comes home. Need to knock some sense into him.’

‘Want space?’ Karkat asked.

Dave leaned into Karkat’s touch for a moment before nodding. 

‘Right, well let’s go somewhere else then. What d’you want to see?’

‘Gotta ‘pologise to Rose,’ Eridan said. 

‘Good,’ Dave said. ‘Tell her you need that scarf back.’

‘Wwhy?’

‘’Cause I reckon she kept it and I want to give her shit for it.’

Karkat shoved at Dave and then marched from the hive. Eridan put the ring he was polishing back on and followed him. Karkat didn’t wait for him, but at least didn’t stride off so fast that Eridan couldn’t catch up.

 

Karkat tapped at his handtop while he walked, presumably warning Rose they were coming. He forced his way into another hive with classic Karkat brusqueness. Rose was on a couch, legs tangled in with the other white haired human girl’s. Kanaya was sitting at a table, feeding fabric through a sewing machine. Eridan was not deceived, she would be on her feet, chainsaw out the second she didn’t approve of anything Eridan said or did. 

Eridan ignored the two girls that weren’t Rose and dropped his wand and rifle from his sylladex. Rose disentangled herself and sat up straight, a natural highbloods pride straightening her spine. It reassured Eridan that he was right to make this kind of display.

Eridan crouched before her and placed his chin on her knee and then rotated it, exposing his neck.

‘I am so sorry,’ he said. ‘I wwould nevver havve hurt you on purpose and I am ashamed it happened wwithout my knowwledge. I offer my neck.’

‘... Karkat,’ Rose said. ‘Is there a traditional response, or am I free to speak naturally.’

‘Fuck if I know, sea-dwellers are weird.’

‘I see.’ Rose’s hand came down gently on Eridan’s hair. She stroked his horn lightly and then his neck. ‘Thank you for your apology. It hurt, physically, of course, but emotionally as well, when you killed me. I forgive you.’ Her hand went back to his horn and she cupped it under its first curve as if keeping Eridan from moving. ‘Eridan Ampora, Prince of Sea-Dwellers and of Hope, your neck is mine. Take care of it for me.’ 

Eridan rolled slightly so he could meet Rose’s eyes. She nodded with full magnanimity and Eridan withdrew his head and repositioned himself so he was sitting on the floor, legs crossed and back just as straight as hers.

‘Kanaya, dear, are you having any thoughts you would like to express with me,’ Rose called, her eyes still on Eridan.

‘None, sweet heart.’

Rose’s smile warmed up several notches.

‘I pity you quite pale, Eridan,’ she said, leaning forwards.

Eridan whipped his head back to Kanaya. She  _ approved _ ? She didn’t even look up from her sewing. He looked to Karkat, who was still hovering awkwardly in the doorway. He looked just as baffled as Eridan felt. He refocused on Rose. She looked mildly amused at Eridan’s disbelief.

‘Yes?’ she said.

‘Yes, I …’ Eridan took a moment to shake himself mentally. If he had gone to a violetblood like this, it was possible they would have responded with pity. Until he had entered the game he had been considered quite a catch, he wasn’t quite sure why none of his friends agreed with that. Maybe he sought out friends who didn’t worship him. He needed to get over this thing he had where he thought he was better than everyone and lower than dirt all at the same time. 

Rose was waiting for his response.

‘I’m pale for you, too,’ he whispered. How strange to be doing this in a room with other people. How strange to go from being utterly, utterly alone to being courted by two people in one day. Two  _ aliens _ .

‘I’m glad,’ she said, and she slid off the couch to join him on his level. She took his hands hesitantly, and Eridan felt his heart clench with pity. Just a slight crack in the facade, but enough to make him want to get to her heart, to know it and to guard it. ‘We have so much to catch up on,’ she said.

Karkat heaved himself heavily into an armchair and broke the spell. 

‘I thought you two hadn’t settled on a quadrant,’ he said. ‘I thought humans were all about the quadrant smearing.’

‘Just because my brother cannot conceive of keeping flushed and pale romances separate does not make it true for all of us,’ Rose said. She rose gracefully and retook her seat on the couch. She patted the cushion next to her and Eridan joined her. She smiled at him when he took her hand.

‘Besides, it is not unusual for the lines to blur when the pool of suitable candidates is so small. For example, in the movie we watched last month, the exiled blueblood found something to pity and to hate in the goldblood, but they didn’t straight vacillate because the blueblood still needed someone to stop him from killing in a haze of self-loathing wrath.’

‘You showed Rose  _ that _ movie, Kanaya?’ Karkat asked incredulously. ‘I thought we were keeping things simple for the humans!’

‘I wanted to show her that our film industry had been influenced by your ancestor’s struggles in a similar fashion to Roxy’s. Rose has a much firmer grasp on our culture than … John, for instance.’

Karkat bristled all over. 

‘You weren’t going to say John, were you?’

‘Yes, I was definitely always going to say John.’

‘You know, Dave is actually really good with quadrants now, at least in theory.’

‘So, fishguy, was Gamzee’s bulge proportionate to the rest of him?’ the other human asked, interrupting Kanaya and Karkat’s argument.

‘ROXY!’ Karkat yelled.

Rose rolled her eyes.

‘No, see, because I  _ need to know _ , for science reasons,’ Roxy (thank you Karkat for screaming her name) said, eyes twinkling. 

‘I’vve seen bigger,’ Eridan said flippantly.

There was a slight pause in the motor of the sewing machine as Kanaya looked up with interest, before remembering that she was ambivalent. Karkat was speechless.

‘Omigawd, plz tell me eeeeverything!’ Roxy said. ‘I want to know about every bulge you’ve seen, in order of size! Or aesthetic appeal, perhaps? Sometimes a big dick can be ugly, I’m sure it’s the same for you guys, gotta have a nice ratio, nothin’ too veiny, ya dig.’

‘Roxy,’ Rose said. ‘I think you might already be treading on my toes. A new record.’ She sounded oddly fond.

‘Rosie, I love you, I love you dearly, in fact, but I am pale with everybody, possibly worse than Karkat, you know this, you know this and you love me.’

Rose smirked in amusement.

‘Worse than Karkat?’ Karkat demanded.

Eridan raised an eyebrow at him and Karkat shut up quick.

‘Ooooh! What was that?’ Roxy said, gesturing between them with playful squinty eyes. 

‘Nothing!’ Karkat insisted

Roxy looked at Eridan expectantly.

‘Kar once papped Kan, Rezi and then Gamzee all in the space about a minute wwhile Sol and I wwatched. I mean, Sol wwas blind and I wwas half-unconscious, but still.’

‘What an exhibitionist,’ Roxy breathed happily. ‘Any chance for some of that sweet pale porn for your main gal?’

Karkat let himself flop bodily onto the floor and thumped his head rhythmically.

‘’Course I’d take some flushed porn from ya if my son wasn’t the one gettin’ his squick on.’

‘Aren’t you a bit young to be a lusus?’ Eridan asked.

‘Aw, honey, you can stay!’

‘It’s dancester crap, Eridan. Roxy, you don’t get to be flattered, you’re literally the same age.’

Roxy pouted. Rose stroked her hair fondly and then seemed to remember Eridan and smiled at him guiltily. He shrugged. He knew humans were like that.

‘Uh, Kan, can I have a wword?’ he asked.

‘Heh, Kan can,’ said Roxy.

‘I do not see any reason for us to speak privately.’

Eridan winced. He shifted so he was facing her head on and tilted his head up, exposing his neck. Not quite the same submission he had given Rose, but then, Kanaya should be able to deal with it better. She came at him first. 

‘I’m real sorry for killin’ you wwith my science wwand. I knoww you got better, but it was still a dick movve.’

‘Could tone down the princess pose, huh chicken?’ Roxy suggested.

‘Actually, that’s a very respectful move on Alternia,’ Rose said. ‘Vulnerability, you know.’

‘Could we perhaps cool it on the Lalonde commentary?’ Kanaya said. ‘Thank you, Eridan. It is never too late to apologise. Though, this might be pushing it.’

Eridan let his head fall back to a normal level and snuggled back into Rose.

‘Should we leave you two to it?’ Roxy asked. ‘Get yo diamonds on?’

‘I can’t go home yet,’ Karkat said. ‘I mean, I can’t go back to Dave’s. He wanted to beat the shit out of Dirk, wanted space …’

‘What is wrong with your hive, Karkat?’ Rose asked. ‘Could it be that you haven’t lived there in months?’

‘How about you snoop into your moirails business instead of poking your obscenely jutting nose into mine?’ Karkat suggested.

‘What would you compare my nose to?’ Rose asked.

‘No. Won’t say it. It wouldn’t kill us to retire a fucking meme once in a while. Bad enough that Dave found one the other day and flipped the fuck out.’

‘Did John plant a smuppet trap as a prank?’

‘Worse.’

Rose eyed Karkat, her head cocked to the side. Slow understanding and glee bloomed on her face.

‘Dirk.’

‘I don’t want to know. I don’t want to contemplate it. I’m not thinking about my boyfriend’s ectoclone’s sex habits with … toys or whatever the fuck they are. Just not doing it!’

‘Rosie, you should have seen Dirk when we scoped out Dave’s Bro’s room, it was that delightful shade of aww and eww that ya just don’t get often,’ Roxy said.

‘I thought he was rather sensitive about being compared to Dave’s Bro.’

Roxy grinned. ‘He made an exception. The porn was that good.’

Rose crinkled up her nose. 

‘Sorry, Rosie, it’s the truth. Did you not know that Dave’s Bro did porn?’

‘I’m confused,’ Eridan said. 

Karkat rolled over on the floor so his voice wouldn’t be muffled anymore.

‘Alternate Roxy and alternate Dirk were this Rose and our Dave’s lusii, and vice versa. Humans have hang-ups about incest. Because they’re all the same age, they have come up with strange designators for each other.’

Eridan looked perplexed.

‘Okay, so you know that Rose and Dave consider themselves twins,’

‘Gotta brush up on my human terminology,’ Eridan muttered.

‘Yeah, and Dave and Dirk are brothers, but somehow Dirk and Rose are not. Rose considers Dirk her father figure in the same way that Dave considers Roxy his mother. But then Rose and Roxy are …’

‘We are Rose and Roxy,’ Rose said, smiling at Roxy. 

‘Fucking illuminating.’

‘And Dirk and I are moirails!’ Roxy said.

‘What, since when?’ Karkat asked.

‘Since I finally accepted that he wasn’t gonna magically stop being into dong. But, omygawd did the Bro-porn make a hefty consolation prize!’

Rose shuddered. 

‘Oh, don’t be like that! Some of it was more funny than sexy! Which, wow, what an effort, because you think Dirk’s a hottie now, you just wait to see what he looks like in a couple years!’

Rose turned into Eridan’s shoulder and covered her ears with her hands. Eridan hugged her round the waist and smiled shyly at Roxy. Roxy gave him a saucy wink and turned to Karkat to tell him exactly where he could find his matesprit’s brother’s porn if he was so inclined. 

‘But if you don’t want to know what the puppets are for, it really isn’t for you. There are a couple without them, but they’re the earlier ones and he hadn’t really hit his stride (pun!) yet.’

‘I’m a little flushed for Dirk, is that gonna be an issue wwith your human stuff?’ Eridan asked Rose, stroking her hair. 

‘It might be hard for me to be impartial, and I certainly don’t want to hear if you get into the puppet stuff, but mostly I’m glad.’ She hadn’t come out of her position all snuggled into Eridan’s shoulder and he was thrilled. This was so much better than it had been with Feferi, when he was agonising over how maybe if he wore the right clothes to their piles she might see him as someone worthy of something redder.

‘Your purrs are different to Kanaya’s,’ she noted idly. 

‘You’re a vvery special moirail to get me to purr so easy,’ he replied, quiet so that Karkat wouldn’t point out that Eridan’s desperation for this might have something to do it.

Rose squeezed his waist slightly and Eridan nuzzled into her hair.


	7. Chapter 7

Eridan was not in Dirk’s room. When he had made sure of that, he walked back to Dave, who was waiting in the living room looking entirely too smug.

‘Oh, I’m sorry, I must have confused reality with your fantasies again.’

‘Lil bro, you would _know_ if this was my fantasy land, hot troll in my bed wouldn’t _begin_ to cover it.’

Dave shuddered. Dirk smirked. Dave was too easy to disturb.

‘They’re actually probably over at Rose’s. We going there or waiting for them to come over here?’ Dave said.

‘Let’s go there. I haven’t seen my little girl in too long.’

Dave swung his arm over Dirk’s shoulders and they walked together. They were getting better at the physical affection thing. It still made Dirk a bit emotional to be able to touch the people he loved, but it was less of a big deal than it had been. They didn’t let go even when they had to turn to get through Rose’s doorway.

They froze at the scene in front of them.

Kanaya was styling Eridan’s hair, her full kit next to her and the floor littered with black and purple hair showing that she had given him a cut as well. Rose was sitting next to him but on the couch, one hand holding his as she read a book. Roxy was lying on her belly on the table, feet in the air, as she illustrated a story that Karkat was writing next to her.

‘Hi honey, we’re home,’ Dave said.

‘No, Roxy, I said attractive, not rumblespheres the size of Jupiter,’ Karkat said. He waved a hand in Dave and Dirk’s direction.

‘Look at all this not-murder happening,’ Dave said to Dirk.

‘I’m pretty impressed with all this not-murder,’ Dirk said.

‘Karkat said you had a tantrum, daddy,’ Rose said.

Dave shuddered like he did everytime she called Dirk “daddy”. He still called Roxy “mom” nine times out of ten, though.

‘I may have said some feelings in a somewhat loud way before absconding with all the grace of a toddler in a tiara.’ Dirk shoved Dave’s arm off to go and ruffle Roxy’s hair and then sit beside Rose. ‘Looks like you guys have the peace thing covered on this side though.’

Rose took her hand from Eridan’s to pat Dirk fondly.

‘You’ve met my moirail, Eridan?’ she purred.

‘Congratulations,’ Dirk said, catching her hand and squeezing it. ‘Is it weird if we share him? Because I can stop hitting on him if it’s weird.’

‘HA.’ said Karkat.

‘Cold, dude.’ Dirk said, holding a hand to his heart as if wounded.

‘Accurate, dude,’ said Dave. He was trying to read Karkat’s handwriting from the headlock Roxy had him in.

‘It would be cruel to restrain you like that. Our relationship is pale as bone.’

Aw, Eridan’s face. Looked like he was in love with Dirk’s daughter. A weaker man than him would baulk at that.

They ended up going back to Dave and Dirk’s to cook. Dirk fetched people drinks and stayed clear of the stove. Whenever Dave experimented it paid off, but Dirk was only allowed to follow recipes precisely. He struggled with that.

Karkat sat on the bench next to the stove, his usual position as official taste tester and yelled across the kitchen to Roxy, who was taking liberties with his character descriptions. Rose had taken over the narrative beside her, and Dirk made sure to never read that book. He loved his ecto-daughter, but he didn’t need to read her alien erotica.

Dirk sidled up to Eridan and touched his glass to his.

‘Need a refill?’ he asked.

Eridan shook his head.

Well, Dirk had done his speaking. God damn he missed the days when all his conversations had been done through a computer sometimes. He couldn’t exactly send Eridan a strange Internet link when he didn’t know what to say next.

‘I like your hive,’ Eridan said.

Dirk smirked at him. Nice small talk.

Most people say “thank you”, Dirk. 

‘Thanks,’ Dirk said. ‘It’s a bit bizarre, sharing a space. Good though.’

‘You livved alone, before?’

‘So alone. One of two humans on the planet, probably, alone. I mean, I had robots. They don’t really count, though.’

‘No.’

‘What about you? What was your crib like?’

‘A ship. Belonged to my ancestor. My lusus wwas a flyin’ seahorse. Proper one, not like the tiny ones here. Kept away from other trolls, land dwwellers wwere barely wworth the effort a killin’ them and the sea dwwellers wwere either haughty bastards or sycophants.’

‘Ha. Aliens. So, you leave any choice ass behind?’

Eridan gave him a look.

‘You askin’ after my quadrants?’

Dirk ducked his head and played at being coy. Look at that, so much better than staring at him blankly until his conversational partner escaped awkwardly.

‘Only one I got is wwith Rose,’ Eridan said. He smiled as he said it.

‘Cute.’

Eridan’s cheeks became slightly purple. Dirk was tempted to push it further. He resisted for a grand total of two seconds.

‘You blush pretty,’ he said, leaning in closer.

‘I am pretty,’ Eridan said, blushing deeper.

‘Yeah you are,’ Dirk said. He leaned in to whisper in Eridan’s ear, letting his lips brush the delicate fins. ‘You purple anywhere else, hot stuff?’

‘Wwouldn’t you like to knoww … I’m all covvered up, howw you goin’ to find out?'

Dirk moaned with a mix of frustration and happiness. Why were there so many people in his house? But everything was so perfect.

‘How far away’s dinner, Dave?’ he called.

‘Keep it in your pants, bro.’

Dirk stepped back from Eridan so that he could give Dave a withering look.

‘Ten minutes,’ Dave said.

Dirk turned back to Eridan.

‘Come with me?’

Eridan followed Dirk outside. The door closed and Dirk crowded Eridan to the side of the building.

‘Tell me to stop and I’ll stop,’ he said.

‘You havven’t started anythin’ yet.’

Dirk put his hands on either side of Eridan’s head.

‘I want to kiss you.’

‘You’re still talkin’.’

‘I’m a pretty good kisser, you might not want anyone else after you’ve had me.’

Eridan grabbed the short hairs at the base of Dirk’s head and pulled him in to kiss him hungrily. Dirk kissed back, got impatient with his shades and had to stop himself from throwing them to the ground. They might be fairly sturdy, but they weren’t invulnerable. He slid them up onto his head instead.

That done, he attacked Eridan’s mouth again. Eridan took everything he gave, pushing back just enough to keep the passion going, but wonderfully compliant, letting Dirk lead. Eridan’s cool hands snuck under Dirk’s shirt and pulled his hips closer. Dirk groaned into Eridan’s mouth and let him take over, loving the rhythm they had built up. His shades vibrated on his head and he pulled away reluctantly.

T minus two minutes. 

‘So tell me when we have thirty seconds, _fuck_ ,’ Dirk said out loud, shoving his shades away again. He picked Eridan up by the hips and slammed him into the wall and Eridan wrapped his legs around him, pulling him closer. Dirk’s shades vibrated again but Dirk couldn’t find it in him to care.

‘Dude, stop thinking with your dick, Dave’s literally serving up and you are right outside the door,’ said Brobot’s weird autotuned voice in his ear.

For one stupid moment Dirk contemplated throwing away his earbud, but instead he just reluctantly stepped back to let Eridan down.

‘We have to go back inside,’ Dirk said.

‘To your platform?’ Eridan asked.

‘I wish. No, food’s ready.’

‘Any particular reason you saww fit to rile me up before wwe havve to play it cool wwith your family?’

‘Sorry, bit of a kink for me. Dragging it out, you know?’

Dirk brought his shades down to use them as a mirror.

‘You look fine. Get inside before someone thinks to come look for you,’ Brobot said.

Dirk put his shades back on and gave Eridan a slow look over. He looked just as cool as ever, if he disregarded the intense look in his eyes. Dirk gave him one last kiss, close mouthed and sweet before going back inside.

‘What were you two up to?’ Roxy asked immediately.

‘Just making sure we were on the same page,’ Dirk answered easily.

Roxy cocked her head to one side playfully.

‘Mkay ... What page would that be?’

Eridan gave a dismissive wave and walked over to the kitchen where Rose was.

‘The page where _my god he’s a good kisser_ ,’ Dirk said quietly.

Roxy gave a tiny squeal and grabbed Dirk’s hands. She bounced lightly on her toes.

‘Dirk! So happy! You have to tell me all the details, I need to know them all!’

‘I don’t have to tell you anything,’ Dirk said, smirking so she would know he wasn’t being serious.

Roxy shoved him anyway. He pretended to stagger.

‘Oh, DiStri, you have it bad,’ she said.

Dinner was an exercise in restraint. Eridan was sitting on the other end of the table from Dirk, which was probably for the best, because none of the topics Dirk wanted to talk about were ones considered polite, but also meant that it was hard to stare at him subtly. Brobot casually offered to come inside and give him a camera feed, but Dirk wasn’t that desperate. And he was pretty sure Brobot was being sarcastic. Instead, he tried to listen attentively to Kanaya’s plans for a spring fashion show.

‘And Rose tells me that while she prefers to keep a somewhat modest wardrobe, that sentiment does not necessarily hold true for all humans. I was thinking of approaching Jake, he has been known to expose his legs on occasion.’

‘That was his god tier costume, he didn’t choose to put those on. He hasn’t worn them since, either, so I don’t know how much he would appreciate it,’ Karkat said.

‘Yeah, but the rest of us would sure appreciate it,’ Roxy said. ‘Hubba hubba, am I right Kan-babe? Anyway, I’d be happy to wear something leggy for you, babe. Dirk too, right?’

‘Yeah,’ Dirk said absently.

You just agreed to wear revealing clothes in a fashion parade. 

‘I mean, how revealing are we talking?’ Dirk corrected, wrenching his eyes from where Eridan was idly sucking on his fork.

‘What pieces of anatomy do you insist on covering?’ Kanaya asked.

Dirk considered.

‘I _insist_ on covering my human bulge. The rest is dependent on how fly you make me look. I’ll get just as revealed as Dave does.’

‘Noooo!’ Roxy said. ‘Dave’s a prude, you’ll end up wearing a suit!’

‘Dave’s competitive though,’ Karkat mused.

‘Yo, why’d I just hear my name three times?’ Dave called from the other end of the table, his hand over Rose’s mouth to stop her from talking.

‘We always suspected you were Beetlejuice,’ Dirk said.

‘When you say fly, do you mean I should tailor your clothes to your ability to fly down a catwalk, or do you mean in terms of human slang?’ Kanaya asked.

‘Human slang. See also: hot, sexy, fergalicious,’ Dirk said.

‘I may be biased out of your favour …’ Kanaya said. ‘Seeing that I come from a different species with different ideals. And am predisposed to women.’

‘Strider hotness transcends sexuality and species-bias,’ Dirk said, deadpan.

‘Okay,’ Kanaya agreed peaceably.

‘No, seriously,’ Dirk said.

‘I said okay,’ Kanaya said.

‘Kanaya, I need you to tell me you think I’m hot,’ Dirk said.

Karkat repressed a laugh next to Dirk. Dirk nearly broke character to smile at him. Karkat got his sense of humour. He was really glad Dave’s boyfriend was cool to be around.

‘I …’ Kanaya said. She glanced down to Rose as if hoping that she would save her.

Dirk rolled his t-shirt up to his shoulder and flexed his bicep. He looked Kanaya in the eye and raised an eyebrow. She remained nonplussed. Dirk stood up. Oh, look at that, he had everyone’s attention now. He pulled his shirt up slightly to expose his abs. He wasn’t exactly Arquiusprite, but he had a clear six pack and was pretty banging, if he said so himself. He gestured to the sweet v of muscles leading into his jeans. Kanaya’s eyes were now wide. He let his t-shirt fall back into place and then started unbuttoning his jeans with exaggerated slowness, as if he couldn’t do it one handed with the tips of his god damned fingers.

‘Oh my god, please stop,’ Kanaya said, shocked back into speech. ‘Point made, Dirk, you are hot. Please stop displaying yourself.’

Dirk popped his button back into place and sat back down.

‘Wow, Kanaya, Rose is right there.’

Kanaya made a little whimpering noise and face planted the table. Roxy was kind enough to whisk her plate out of the way just in time.

Dave gave a little snort of laughter. Mission accomplished.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> No, Dirk, that isn't how people act around other people! I've caught up to my writing now, so the updates might come slower.


	8. Chapter 8

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry about the delay. On the pro side: sex.  
> btw, the reason my updates slowed is because of the vampire!Dirk story I'm writing, so check that out if you want.

Eridan could see that Dirk was considering going with Dave and Karkat to watch movies with the rest of the whole fucking planet from the sounds of things. He wasn’t sure if this was more of this delayed gratification thing or if it was a genuine desire to see the movie, but neither were good enough reasons for him. They’d established they were flushed for each other, their moirails were supportive and they were about to have the hive to themselves. Dirk was staying. He just needed a firm hand.

When Dirk went to get a glass of water, Eridan followed him. Alone in the kitchen, Dirk leaned against the counter and cocked his head slightly, making a show of admiring Eridan’s body.

‘You’re not goin’ to that movvie,’ Eridan said, crossing his arms.

‘No?’

‘No. You’re goin’ to stay here and help me get acquainted wwith the human body.’

‘I can’t do that after the movie?’

‘No.’

Dirk raised an eyebrow over his shades.

‘Alright,’ he said.

Eridan smiled. He liked getting his way. 

They went back to the living room. 

‘You coming?’ Dave asked.

‘No,’ Dirk said.

‘What, that’s it, just “no”?’ Karkat asked

‘Want me to elaborate?’ Dirk offered with a smirk.

‘Set an alarm or something,’ Dave muttered before sidling away to the door.

The others took Dave’s lead and before long they were alone. 

Dirk turned to face Eridan and clasped his hands behind his back like a soldier waiting for orders. He was almost a head taller than Eridan, but he wasn’t intimidating. Eridan knew he was in control.

Eridan took Dirk’s shades off and handed them to him to captchalogue. 

‘Show me your bedroom,’ Eridan said.

Dirk obeyed, leading the way to a room at the back of the hive. Okay, that was a lot of puppets. Apart from that, though, the room was very clean. There was a display of swords, a desk with a computer on it and some pretty intense posters, but the bed was made and everything seemed to have a place.

‘I used to have robots and music shit in here too, but we made a studio and workshop, so now it’s mostly just for sleeping.’

‘And … puppets …’

‘Yeah, and I get it if that’s too much, I’m cool with that being a Dirk only venture. I have actually managed a relationship before and we kept it vanilla as ice cream. Probably not a good idea for me to keep that side of myself  _ so  _ very locked up from him in hindsight, but live and learn.’

‘And your robot’s pony monologue is makin’ a bit more sense noww.’

‘Yeah. We’re not great with social pressure.’

‘Wwhen I wwas wwith Gamz, Kar made us talk through our limits. Wwhat wwas and wwas not on the table. Course, in a kismessitude you sorta havve an obligation to come up real close and friendly with those limits, but it has just occurred to me that a similar kind a convversation might be vvaluable here.’

‘Right … Yeah, that seems healthy. But could I preface it with the assurance that I don’t expect anyone else to be remotely into the same stuff as me.’

‘Yeah, wwhatevver, you’re not as scary as you think you are. Hit me with your mildest thing.’

Eridan sat on the bed and patted next to him to indicate that Dirk should join him. He saw Dirk look hesitantly at a spare pair of shades, but he sat without grabbing them or complaining.

‘The … ordering me around thing,’ he said.

‘Yeah, I figured that one out all by myself. Wwould you wwant to order me around sometime?’

‘Yes,’ Dirk blurted. ‘I mean, that would be nice, too.’

‘Fine, wwe can do that. Not tonight, mind, you’re mine tonight.’

Dirk’s lips twitched into a smile. 

‘Wwhat else? Wwhat wwas the wwaitin’ thing about?’

‘I like to take my time. Like to tease.’ Dirk looked down as if guilty. ‘I can get a bit carried away with it though.’

‘Tell me,’ Eridan said. Yeah, he could get used to being in control.

‘I kept Jake wanting me for a couple of hours, but he wasn’t into it. I got a bit cross with him because he finished himself off rather than wait for me. We worked it out, it wasn’t for him.’

‘I can wwait. If I knoww there’s pleasure at the end I got a wworld a patience in me.’

Dirk met Eridan’s eyes. Eridan felt like Dirk was trying to tell if he was just saying what he wanted him to say.

‘Next,’ Eridan ordered. 

‘Bondage …’

Eridan rolled the word around in his mind. 

‘Wwhat, like tyin’ each other up?’

Dirk nodded. 

‘So long as you use proper knots I ain't got a problem.’

Dirk’s eyes lit up with realisation. ‘You were a sailor,’ he said.

‘I livved on a fuckin’ pirate ship. Yeah, I sailed. Next.’

‘Toys,’ Dirk said. He seemed more confident about this one. Maybe because he assumed it was too much for Eridan to agree to? He had said the puppets were too weird for most people.

‘Like those?’ Eridan asked, gesturing at the puppet pile.

‘Uh, for starters.’

Dirk got off the bed so that he could pull a chest from underneath it. There was a lock on it, but it hung loose. He unhooked it and opened the lid. Eridan joined Dirk on the floor so he could see. It was a bit like a tool box, one with layers. One layer had whips and canes, another had metallic and plastic cylinders ranging from the size of half a finger to almost forearm length and thickness. Another had lengths of rope and leather and silk. Another seemed to be devoted to different textures, with feathers and fur and spikes all neatly arranged. Another was filled with leather contraptions, presumably more things to keep someone in place.

‘Rose said all you had growwin’ up wwas wwhat an alt-Dave left you and wwhat you built,’ Eridan said. 

‘Yeah. These belonged to Dave’s Bro. He was basically me, so I know he kept it all in good nick. The puppets, too. I mean, I made some myself, but there was only so much I could do with the supplies I had.’

‘Okay, I’m not seein’ anythin’ that I wwant to take off the table right awway,’ Eridan said. ‘It’s a lot to take in, mind.’

Dirk was looking at Eridan with an expression of wonder on his face.

‘What about you? Anything I didn’t cover?’ Dirk asked.

‘Talk to me pretty. I don’t like the name callin’. Prefer it to all be a positivve thing.’

‘Babe, I don’t think my mind can even comprehend anything less than worship for you right now,’ Dirk said.

Eridan smiled and rewarded Dirk with a kiss. It was supposed to be soft and sweet, but Dirk moaned into it all appreciative and then their lips were parting and their tongues were meeting and Eridan was tempted to straddle Dirk’s lap but there was a bed right there … No, he wasn’t stopping kissing Dirk, they’d just have to stay on the floor. Eridan fitted himself snugly on Dirk’s crossed legs and his purrs kicked in when Dirk wrapped his arms around him so tight it was like he couldn’t stand the thought of Eridan leaving. Eridan left Dirk’s lips so he could kiss down his jawline, nip at his earlobe, suck at his neck.

Dirk rolled his neck back obligingly, giving Eridan better access and moaned quietly as he worked. After a moment, Dirk moved back so that he could kiss Eridan again, his hands sliding down his back, cupping his bum. Then Dirk was standing, easily supporting Eridan’s weight and then guiding him onto the bed and slotting himself between Eridan’s legs. 

‘You are  _ so  _ gorgeous,’ Dirk said, stroking his hand down Eridan’s chest. ‘Pet names okay?’ he asked.

‘Yeah, just don’t be mean,’ Eridan said, arching into Dirk’s touch.

‘Couldn’t if I tried, you’re so beautiful, only thing in my mind is compliments.’ Dirk continued to stroke gently and Eridan’s purrs got louder, more because of his words than his hands. ‘Yes,’ Dirk breathed. ‘God, you sound amazing, you’re gonna ruin me for humans.’ Dirk pulled at the bottom of Eridan’s shirt and Eridan sat up to let him take it off. ‘Holy shit, look at you, I’m not gonna let you wear clothes again, you shouldn’t be hiding this.’ He shut up long enough for Eridan to take off his shirt and then he was talking again. ‘Your muscles are different to mine, look,’ he said. ‘Too much to hope that one of you brought anatomy textbooks with you, I suppose.’ He traced shapes in Eridan’s skin with his fingertips and then bent down to trace them again with his lips and tongue.

‘I suppose ... your interest is ... vvery scientific,’ Eridan breathed, trying for sarcastic. It was hard to talk when his throat was purring and Dirk’s lips were making him pant slightly.

‘So scientific,’ he murmured against Eridan’s skin. ‘And a little religious.’ He pulled at the waistband of Eridan’s jeans, running his fingers just on the inside of them so slowly until he reached the button. Eridan caught Dirk under the chin and pulled him up for more kisses. Dirk undid the button and slowly inched the zip down one handed, his other hand tangling itself in Eridan’s hair. Kanaya had left it mostly natural, just coating it with a product to help it heal after months of exposure to salt water, so Dirk’s fingers glided in easily and held him firmly. Eridan let him drag his head back and kissed him hungrily.

‘You’re a fuckin’ tease, you knoww that?’ Eridan said as Dirk mouthed gently at his fins.

‘Mmm,’ said Dirk, ghosting his hand over Eridan's pants.

Eridan ran his sharp nails down Dirk’s back as harshly as he dared. He didn’t want to break the skin.

‘Fffuck,’ Dirk gasped. ‘There’s a lot of pleasure in the waiting,’ he said.

Eridan didn’t think Dirk actually wanted waiting at that moment. He rolled them so he could bite at Dirk’s collarbone. Dirk shuddered underneath him.

‘You wwant me sharp?’ Eridan asked.

‘What gave me away?’

Eridan ran his nails down Dirk’s chest, creating little red marks in his wake. He bit into his chest, over his heart. Dirk grabbed at Eridan’s hair, at his horns, but not to pull him away, to stroke, to reward.

Eridan got Dirk’s jeans undone and Dirk pulled them off himself. He wasn’t wearing anything under them. Eridan took his own off too, taking advantage of Dirk’s hands being occupied with himself. The second they were off, Dirk rolled them back together so their bodies were entirely flushed with one another. Eridan could feel Dirk’s bulge pressed up into his hip, reached out with his own bulge to hold it as he held Dirk’s neck with his hands. Dirk groaned as their bulges met and grabbed at Eridan’s hip, pulling him closer.

‘Okay,’ Dirk said. ‘I fucking love your dick.’ He rolled his hips, trying to get closer. Eridan tangled their calves together. ‘Love at first sight, touch, whatever, he’s my new best friend.’

Eridan grinned.

‘He likes you too,’ he said. He couldn’t imagine talking to anyone else like this during sex, being this comfortable. ‘Fuck, you’re big though.’

Dirk groaned happily. ‘Whatever you want,’ he said. ‘I’ll give you anything, everything.’

Eridan purred and Dirk shivered as the vibrations ran down his body. Dirk released Eridan’s hip to grab his bum and then stroke around his leg. Eridan shifted his leg to give him access.

‘Okay, just letting you know, we got different equipment here, really hoping it’s all compatible.’ Dirk’s hand ghosted along Eridan’s nook, feeling and exploring with the lightest touches. Eridan made the effort to keep still, not wanting to rush him. ‘Suddenly getting insight into what it must be like for straight couples,’ he said. ‘Kinda weird not already having a good idea on what’ll work.’

‘You’re doin’ good,’ Eridan breathed.

‘Mmm,’ Dirk said. ‘Mind letting me go? Wanna try something.’

Eridan let his bulge relax from the firm grip around Dirk and Dirk moved so his face was right up close to it. Eridan had to remind himself to be calm and confident. He was pretty proud of his bulge. Nothing to worry about here.

‘Okay, I’m gonna just go for this, you gotta give me feedback, okay?’

‘Wwhat, you wwant me to fill out a form?’ Eridan asked incredulously.

‘No! Just, like if it feels good or bad, whatever, just let me know.’

Dirk gently stroked along the outside of Eridan’s nook and then up and around his bulge.

‘You’re such a fuckin’  _ tease _ ,’ Eridan said again. It didn’t sound remotely like a complaint. 

Dirk kissed Eridan’s thigh gently and kept stroking, just the barest whisper of fingers against skin. He kissed Eridan’s thigh again, sucking at it as he stroked.

Eridan moaned.

Dirk kissed him again, higher up, closer to his bulge, which was doing crazy things to Eridan’s brain, his skin was tingling and he was struggling to keep his bulge from getting up close and personal with Dirk’s face. Eridan found himself with a renewed appreciation for humans. Maybe it was just Dirk, but this wasn’t a thing he could imagine a troll doing at all.

Dirk kissed him higher again and Eridan shuddered with pleasure and this strange anticipation, because he was gonna run out of room, any second, and Eridan didn’t know what happened then but he was real happy with the developments so far. 

Dirk dipped the tip of his finger into Eridan’s nook. 

‘ _ Fuck _ ,’ Eridan breathed.

Dirk’s finger stayed way too shallow, too gentle, just tracing up and down in this punishingly slow pace. 

And then Dirk ran out of leg to kiss. He kissed Eridan’s bulge.

‘Holy fuck,’ Eridan said.

Dirk licked up Eridan’s bulge and sucked on the very tip. Eridan couldn’t keep it still, he really wanted to hold still, to let Dirk do whatever the fuck he wanted to do, but he couldn’t remember ever being so turned on and his bulge was fucking  _ writhing _ with it.

Dirk didn’t back off when Eridan thrust into his mouth, though, he just made this gorgeous moan that vibrated right through Eridan and sucked harder, and just when Eridan thought it couldn’t get better, Dirk stopped teasing and slowly guided two fingers into his nook. 

Eridan groaned and pressed his nails into the mattress.

Dirk sucked and pumped his fingers, so slow, so good, so  _fuck._

‘You keep,  _ ah fuck _ , goin’ like thaaaat, ngh, gonna need a bucket,’ Eridan said. He couldn’t bring himself to care that his speech was fucked.

Dirk withdrew slowly, like he was reluctant. He kissed Eridan on the thigh again before crawling back so they were face to face.

Holy shit but seeing him covered in Eridan’s genetic material was fucking gorgeous. Eridan leaned in to kiss him and pulled him closer, tangling his bulge around Dirk’s bigger one. It seemed to have grown even more, which really should have disconcerted him but instead had him pressing himself closer. 

‘That’s on the list,’ Eridan said. ‘The things wwe wwant list. That wwas fuckin’ awwesome.’

Dirk smiled and kissed him again. 

‘Next time I want to get you all the way there,’ Dirk said. ‘Just want you in every way, hard to pick one.’

‘Wwhat’s wwinnin’ at the moment?’

‘I got a real good feeling about your dick, it’s making me want to bottom something fierce.’

‘Meanin’?’

‘Want you inside me,’ Dirk said, all husky and delicious.

‘Yeah, wwe’re goin’ to havve to take turns, aren’t wwe,’ Eridan said, slightly disappointed. Only very slightly, because he was feeling pretty fucking happy about how it was all going.

‘Oh my god,’ Dirk said. ‘I think I might die I’m so turned on. You can do both. At the same time. Holy shit. I’ll figure out a way to make it work, I promise.’

‘Howw you figure you can make a promise like that?’

‘There’s a version of me out there who made his living making niche sex toys. I’ll figure it out.’

Dirk’s hands slowly stroked up and down Eridan’s body as they spoke, and it felt kinda like he wasn’t just touching from want, but also like he was taking mental notes, seeing how they were similar and where they differed. He pressed into Eridan’s muscles deliciously, massaging them into relaxation.

‘If you put your bulge in me first, I might be able to get mine in you after?’ Eridan said. 

‘Mmm, yes,’ Dirk said. ‘Not exactly much room for movement, though.’

‘Your bulge stays still?’

‘Yeah, gotta use my hips. But I really want to try anyway.’

Eridan nodded eagerly. Dirk leaned back and slowly guided his bulge into Eridan’s nook. Just the tip had Eridan moaning with pleasure. Dirk went as slowly as he’d done with everything else, but this time it didn’t fill Eridan with frustration, because he needed the time to adjust. Finally, Dirk stopped and paused for a long moment. Eridan gripped the back of Dirk’s neck and kissed him deeply. He’d never felt so full and he loved it. He had a feeling this was going on his kink list too. Dirk broke their kiss and rested his forehead on Eridan’s.

‘I’m gonna move now, show you human style.

Eridan nodded and Dirk thrust, slowly, in and out. 

‘Fuck,  _ yes _ ,’ Eridan said. His nook found a rhythm with Dirk’s movements and started squeezing. Dirk moaned and sped up. Eridan didn’t bother trying to supress the movements of his bulge where it strained against Dirk’s belly. Dirk’s movements were getting less precise which was just the hottest thing after all that control and Eridan could feel himself getting close too.

‘Yes, yes, keep goin’’ Eridan moaned.

Dirk groaned and leaned closer and somehow sped up even more. Dirk reached down and grabbed at Eridan’s bulge and slid his closed fist over it to the same tempo as his thrusts and fuck,  _ fuck _ , Eridan came.

Dirk was still holding himself up on his elbows as he panted, trying to regain his breath. Eridan pulled him so he was lying on top of him. He wasn’t so precious as to be crushed by a human.

Dirk kissed Eridan’s neck and then rolled so that he was on the bed too. He uncaptchalogued his shades right back onto his face and was quiet for a little while as they glowed at him.

‘Oh my god, right in the knick of time. They’re on their way home, Brobot was about to try and intercept them.’

‘Wwe gotta do somethin’ about that?’

‘Nah, I’m not leaving this bed for a good while yet.’ Dirk got rid of his shades again and wrapped his arms and legs around Eridan. ‘I’m hoping you’re into cuddles, dude, because that’s a non-negotiable relationship perk.’

Eridan arranged his arms so they were around Dirk and kissed him gently.

‘Yeah, me too.’

Dirk made a contented ‘mmm’ noise. 

‘You’re really not going to leave?’ Dirk said after a while.

Eridan couldn’t look him in the eye from the angle they’d ended up in and Dirk’s eyes were closed anyway.

‘You wwant me to?’

‘No,’ said Dirk, a bit fast. ‘I mean … I’d understand. I know I’m a bit much.’

‘Wwhat’re you talkin’ about?’

‘Uh …’ 

‘I don’t knoww about humans, but cuddlin’ is standard stuff after a pail for trolls.’

‘Ha. Who knew. Just needed a troll boyfriend all along.’

Dirk hugged him closer and Eridan pushed his face into his soft human hair. They’d just have to clean themselves up later, there wasn’t any way Eridan was moving from the wonderfully close human all tangled up in him. 


	9. Chapter 9

When Dirk woke up he suddenly had regrets at just falling asleep without doing the clean up thing. Eridan was still in bed, not just bearing Dirk’s arm around him but hugging it close. Dirk made sure to take away out really slowly so he didn’t wake him. 

He slid his shades on and checked the time. Just after 7, probably early enough that Dave and Karkat won’t be waking up for a while, but was it worth the risk of doing a cheeky nude flash step to the bathroom?

No. Dirk put his clothes back on, cringing at the fabric sticking to the alien come. He grabbed a towel and clean clothes and stepped out of his room.

‘Hey bro,’ Dave said as Dirk closed the door. Dirk jumped nearly out of his skin. He miraculously did not equip his sword. 

Dave smirked at Dirk’s reaction and Dirk crossed his arms and leaned against the wall, pretending like he hadn’t just lost a million cool points.

‘Sup,’ Dirk said.

‘Are high fives in order?’ Dave asked.

Dirk hesitated.

‘Maybe after I shower.’

‘Oh my god, holy shit, so gross, oh god, never ambushing you again, point proven,  _ shit _ ,’ Dave said, walking away to the kitchen.

Dirk looked at his hands. Yeah, they were super purple. Surely his brother would rather he got rid of it first. He was the good guy in this one specific too much information situation.

After he’d showered and changed, he left a towel and spare clothes on the floor next to Eridan’s head and joined Dave in the kitchen.

Dirk offered his hand for a high five. Dave stared at the roof for a long moment before giving in and slapping Dirk’s hand.

‘Does it even count as having sex if you don’t get a high five afterwards?’ Dirk wondered.

‘Asking the real questions there, Bro,’ Dave said. ‘I don’t think I’ve ever actually been grateful for your stupidly long showers before.’

‘Is it weird if we compare notes?’ Dirk asked. ‘Because I’m kinda dying to compare notes.’

Dave scrunched up his nose. 

‘Yeah, okay, me too,’ he said, sounding reluctant as all hell. ‘But I reserve the right to abscond the fuck away if it gets too much.’

Dirk nodded and got to preparing himself a coffee.

‘The … stuff … comes off a lot easier if you clean up right away,’ Dave offered.

‘Cool. It’s the colour of their blood?’ Much better than asking outright if your brother’s boyfriend’s jizz is red.

‘Yeah, freaked me the fuck out first time.’

‘You generally top or bottom? Or you figured out a way to do both?’

‘That really is as roundabout as you can ask it, isn’t it …’ Dave sighed. ‘Argh. Top. Haven’t … worked up the nerve … for bottoming … yet. Karkat … hasn’t figured out it’s possible.’

‘Right, why would they bother with it when they all have …’

‘Yep.’

‘I really never thought I’d be remotely interested in a …’

‘Well, they’re still dudes, it’s a … nook, not a …  _ vagina _ .’

Dirk wondered whether there were ever bigger dorks in any corner of paradox space than him and his brother. Because while he would like to rip on Dave for approximately 40 years for whispering the word “vagina” like that was off limits in this conversation about alien sex, he also wasn’t keen on saying it out loud.

‘Yeah …’ Dirk said, because there wasn’t much else to say.

‘Can we stop having the most awkward conversation ever? I think I’d rather talk about our brotherly feelings at this point.’

Dirk laughed at that. They both drank their coffees in much more comfortable silence reassured that the awkward part was over with. 

‘You seem … happy, though,’ Dave said after a while.

‘Dude, I don’t even think it was the sex, though, yeah, nice,’ Dirk said. ‘He’s like unnaturally cuddly, it’s awesome.’

Dave gave Dirk a funny look.

‘Unnaturally cuddly?’

‘Yeah, like, stayed in bed all night, that shit’s awesome. I guess it’s standard stuff for trolls or something.’

‘Pretty standard for humans, too …’ Dave said.

Dirk frowned at Dave. 

‘Do I need to go give Jake a hard time?’ Dave asked.

‘What? No! He’s only just gotten to the point where he can deal with being in the same room as me!’

‘So tell me Jake cuddled you, bro,’ Dave said. 

Dave held his serious expression for half a second after Dirk burst out laughing. Yeah, that was a fairly ridiculous thing for him to say just now.

‘Jake grew up alone,’ Dirk explained. ‘Took him a while to get used to kissing without freaking out. And I was just … always pushing. Not his fault he wasn’t ready. I should have been so much more patient with him. Kept just trying to come up with other solutions instead of just waiting.’

Dave frowned.

‘Okay, that was a downer. Tell me more about how you’re in love with a fish.’

‘Dude!’ Dirk said. ‘You know the laws of irony almost demanded that Eridan walk in and just hear that bit? I do not need any help coming over weirdly intense.’

Dave shrugged and smirked.

‘What are you doing up so early?’ Dirk asked.

‘Ugh, Jane wants help with the plants. I should be able to make them grow faster, but last time they withered because they need water and whatever as well as time. So Jane’s gonna try and combo with me. Jade was gonna play her bass for us because apparently it has crazy plant growing properties.’

‘Sounds like bullshit,’ Dirk said.

‘Yeah, so it’s probably gonna end up working.’

Dave left soon after that, admitting that he waited around for Dirk to finish with his shower for the sweet gossip. 

Dirk messed around with his sketch pad for a bit before abandoning all pretenses and going back to Eridan and bed. Ugh, except he forgot about the purple stuff everywhere.

‘Hey, uh … babe …’ Dirk said, resting his hand gently on Eridan’s shoulder. 

Eridan opened his eyes and smiled up at him. Dirk smiled back without thinking. 

‘You wanna take a shower while I deal with these sheets?’ Dirk said. 

Eridan ruffled his hair as he sat up and then stretched. 

‘You been up long?’ he asked. 

‘Nah,’ Dirk answered. 

Eridan stretched his arms again and then dragged Dirk in for a kiss with them.

‘Okay, shower,’ he said. ‘Sounds good.’ 

Dirk flashed in front of him before he could stride out of his room in all his naked troll glory and handed him the towel and clothes. 

‘Thanks,’ Eridan said, before stepping around him and walking to the bathroom.

Okay, they were going to have a talk about modesty, cool. Maybe Dave had advice for that? Not that Dirk had ever seen Karkat in less than his long-sleeved shirt, baggy jeans glory. 

Still, Dirk didn’t hear a shout of alarm, so he assumed everything went okay. He stripped the bed and captchalogued the dirty sheets (had to change those CDs to “sick beats” and the cheese to “dairy eats”, whatever, it worked). He put them in the machine for a soak in stain remover and queued it up to do a standard wash after that. If that didn’t work, he’d just have to alchemise more, that was the extent of his knowledge.

He nearly had the new sheets on his bed when Karkat knocked on his open door.

‘Sup?’ Dirk asked as he grabbed the corner of the doona through the sheet. Karkat came in and grabbed the other two corners and wow, yeah, that was much easier.

‘So, this is a thing?’ Karkat said.

Dirk contemplated playing dumb, but he really did want to be less of a douche.

‘Yeah.’

‘You’re not just leading him on, right?’

‘Dude,  _ no _ . He’s scary perfect for me. I mean, I gotta assume there’s a spanner in the works I’ve missed somewhere, but for real, he’s like … perfect, yeah.’

‘Okay,’ Karkat said. ‘I’m probably meddling way too much even saying anything, but fuck, whatever, you all think I’m gang-moirailing everyone anyway.’

Dirk made a face at Karkat’s choice of expression.

‘He’s got Rose for that shit, right?’

‘Yeah, but she trusts you,’ Karkat grumbled.

‘You don’t trust me? Karkat, I’m wounded. When we have shared so many times together. So many fond memories.’

‘We’ve played some video games together, asshat, don’t get carried away.’

Dirk grinned at Karkat and they threw his doona on the bed together.

‘So, Dave thinks you don’t know anal’s a human possibility,’ Dirk said, not at all casually.

Karkat blushed.

‘No, look, I get it, pretending you don’t know shit is like the foundation of my existence, but I’m pretty curious here.’

‘He’s open to a lot of shit, I don’t  _ have _ to stick my bulge everywhere,’ Karkat said.

‘No, that would be … whatever, changing topic. How long are Eridan’s showers, we got time to talk?’

‘They rival yours, he’s obsessed with water and vain as hell.’

‘Sweet.’

They walked to the lounge together and Dirk pulled up a video game. They didn’t do the looking at each other thing while they talked. It worked for them.

‘So, I noticed you had a bit of a reaction to the Eridan-Gamzee story,’ Dirk said once they got settled.

‘Yeah, is there a reason you’re playing dumb there? Apart from the obvious?’

‘You told me you had a relationship and it ended messily, you did  _ not _ tell me it ended with a temporary murder. If I say I know nothing, I get the full story, none of the evasive bullshit.’

Karkat rolled his eyes. 

‘Go on then, enlighten me. What stupid face did past Karkat make?’

‘You feel responsible for it all, don’t you?’

‘I can’t believe  _ you _ are the one talking to me about feeling responsible for shit. You’re gonna tell me not to, aren’t you, you fucking hypocrite. You can stick it up your wastechute, bulgefondler, I was responsible. Could have won awards for how fucking terrible I was at being an auspice.’

Dirk bumped his shoulder into Karkat’s. 

‘You think you’re a terrible matesprit, too, so I’m gonna go ahead and disregard that sentiment. Plus, Eridan said they loved you, that’s nice. And he told me you had them talk limits and wants, it all sounds very healthy.’

Karkat flipped Dirk off. 

‘Yeah, it was all Gamzee’s fault, but … if someone you’re responsible for does something shitty, you can’t just wash your hands of it, even if they’re fucking psychotic and you tried.’

‘Huh … Yeah, I totally get that.’

They played in silence for a bit.

‘Does it still bother you, though?’ Dirk asked.

‘Only when I think about it,’ Karkat said dryly.

‘Alright, well, that’s the bit I take issue with. Maybe you can accept like two percent of the blame, but stop kicking yourself.’

Karkat sighed and paused the game, leaning back on the couch.

‘Do you ever feel like if you stop feeling bad about something then that makes you a bad person? Like moving on means that you don’t care enough to hate yourself for your mistakes and that all seems really callous?’

‘Sure. But that’s just a feeling and I know it’s a particularly mean one. The thought that goes along with it is, for fuck’s sake, Dirk, let stuff go or you won’t be able to do actually useful shit because you’re burning up your CPU with aggressively unhelpful shit.’

‘Does that make a difference?’ Karkat asked.

‘Sometimes. Sometimes I just got to wait it out. Go talk to Rox or play music real loud or something.’

Karkat unpaused the game. 

‘I’m telling Roxy you’re cheating on her with me,’ he said.

‘Is she telling everyone we’re moirails?’ Dirk asked.

‘Are you not?’

‘Fuck, if best friends isn’t a good enough label for her she can have moirail too.’

Karkat snorted. He wasn’t fooled by Dirk’s flippancy.


	10. Chapter 10

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Shameless Eridan/Dirk porn. With a bit of fluff. Because they deserve a happy ending. :)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I had no idea how to end this story, and my friend said, just do a time jump to their anniversary or something. GENIUS. Anyway, thank you to those who have been patient enough to stick around for the end while I ran away with my other fics instead of updating this one. :3

_ One Year Later _

 

Eridan had gotten used to sleeping on a concupiscent platform in the last year, had gotten used to Dirk clinging to him in his sleep like he was afraid he was going somewhere, but one thing he wasn’t used to was how every now and then, waking up for no reason he could think of, he would notice that Dirk’s dick was hard and pressing into the small of his back.

There was just no way to get back to sleep once he’d noticed that.

If he squirmed out of Dirk’s cuddle, Dirk would usually turn around, conditioned into swapping to being the little spoon without waking up after a year of sleeping together. Eridan turned around and slipped his arm around Dirk’s waist, but couldn’t stop thinking about Dirk’s dick, hard and waiting, just a tiny movement away. He stroked his fingers through the soft hairs on Dirk’s chest, wondering if he should let him sleep of if he could justify waking him up for sex. It wasn’t like Eridan would mind if Dirk ever woke him up for sex. It wasn’t like they couldn’t sleep in if he was tired after. 

Eridan traced his fingers lightly down Dirk’s chest, to his side, and then past his hips to his legs. 

Dirk made a tiny sleepy noise.

Eridan decided that if he didn’t do this he was going to need to go to the bathroom and pail himself because his bulge was officially taking interest in the feel of the soft skin under his fingers, slowly unsheathing. Or maybe it was just the thought of Dirk all sleepy and clingy and waking up turned on. Made Eridan feel sexy and sneaky. He dragged the backs of his nails lightly up the inside of Dirk’s thigh, stopping just shy of his dick. 

Dirk exhaled breathily. 

Okay, not entirely asleep.

Eridan gently touched at Dirk’s balls, stroking them, squeezing them carefully. He cupped them before moving his palm up to his dick, keeping his grip as light as possible.

‘Fuck, Eridan,’ Dirk whispered.

Eridan grinned into Dirk’s shoulder and let his bulge seek out his ass. It was clumsy work without devoting a hand to guide it, but Dirk liked it when it teased and slicked slurry between his cheeks, pressed against the back of his balls and along the crease before it found his hole. 

Dirk was shaking slightly with anticipation and Eridan went back to stroking him. His bulge’s movements became sloppier without his focus and Dirk squirmed in front of him, seemingly torn between arching for his bulge and thrusting into his hand. The tip of his bulge found Dirk’s hole and pressed in slightly, and Eridan focused again to twitch it away. 

Dirk moaned in protest and then slapped a hand to his mouth. Eridan bit him on the shoulder to get him to relax. They hadn’t lived with Dave and Karkat for over six months but Dirk still muffled all his noises until Eridan managed to get him out of his head. Biting usually did the trick.

Sure enough, as Eridan sank his teeth into Dirk’s shoulder and held down, Dirk groaned louder. He thrust into Eridan’s hand and Eridan gripped him a little tighter in response. Eridan’s bulge flicked against Dirk’s hole again and Dirk shook like a leaf. This time he couldn’t help but push in and moan with how tight and warm Dirk was around his bulge.

He pushes back against Eridan, always so eager, it’s so fucking hot. Eridan shifted his hand down, chasing Dirk’s dick, pumping it how he knew he liked it. He grinded against Eridan and Eridan had to grip his hip to still him. He don’t want Dirk to break his bulge. He whined and tried to move but Eridan held him tight. 

‘God, Dan,  _ please _ ,’ he said. 

‘Wwant in me?’ 

‘ _ Yes, _ yes, want your nook,’ Dirk moaned. 

Eridan pulled out of him and Dirk whined, even though he had asked for it, and Eridan pushed him onto his back. He let it happen, no matter how tough he acted during the day, Dirk always let Eridan throw him around at night. 

Eridan pushed Dirk’s legs apart, fit their hips together and grinded against him before straddling his hips and lowering his nook down on to Dirk’s dick. 

‘Jesus, Mary and Joseph that’s … god, Dan, so good,’ Dirk said. 

Eridan leaned forward to rest their chests together so he could reach down with his bulge to search for Dirk’s asshole. Dirk groaned impatiently as Eridan’s bulge writhed, searching but not finding. 

‘Gimme a sec,’ Eridan said, amused. 

Dirk thrust up and then spread his legs. He was more responsive than usual, Eridan thought it must have something to do with being half asleep, he wasn’t thinking yet. Eridan bit his lip and concentrated as his bulge finally slipped in. 

Dirk arched his back and moaned. 

Eridan sat back up, letting his bulge drive deeper into Dirk, thrashing instinctively but restrained by his tight walls. 

‘Eridan,’ Dirk moaned.

Eridan bit into Dirk’s shoulder and Dirk thrust up desperately. Eridan keened and purred and forced himself to let go of Dirk’s shoulder when he tasted blood. 

Dirk just moaned louder and then gribbed the small of Eridan’s back, held him close and rolled them so he was on top. He thrust shallow and fast, not daring to fuck him deeply and risk dislodging Eridan’s bulge but  _ grinding _ , moving in that way that drove Eridan crazy. 

‘Talk to me,’ Dirk said, breathlessly.

‘God, feel so good, Dirk,  _ fuck me _ , wwant your cock,  _ Dirk …’ _

‘Yes,’ Dirk groaned. ‘More, keep going.’

‘Gonna come, you’re so fuckin’ good, fuck, fuck,  _ fuck _ !’

They both moaned at different pitches as they reached climax, Dirk muffling it into Eridan’s shoulder and Eridan keening, knowing he sounded alien to Dirk and not caring, resisting the urge to bite and scratch as his nook pulsed around Dirk’s dick. He could feel their slurries mingling, still felt so fucking dirty that they came in each other, even with Dirk’s invented bed sheets collecting the spill.

Dirk collapsed and panted. Eridan let him catch his breath before he shoved at his shoulder, demanding that he move. Dirk laughed a little breathless laugh and rolled onto the bed. 

‘Okay, what was all that about?’ Dirk said.

‘Wwhat wwas all wwhat about?’

‘God, I love you so much, say more double-you words.’

‘Fuck you, Strider,’ Eridan tried to hiss, but his happy purrs got in the way.

‘You just did,’ Dirk said smugly.

Eridan hid his face in the mattress.

‘Come on, babe, it’s like two am.’

‘You wwoke me up first,’ Eridan muttered.

‘I am so not complaining.’

‘Your shades are doin’ the thing,’ Eridan said.

‘Brobot, holy fuck, he’s purring, not growling,’ Dirk groaned.

‘They’re still flashin’. Did you havve a fallin’ out wwith Brobot?’

‘Fuck, he’s not playing secretary for me, I forgot.’

Dirk pulled his shades off their charging cable and onto his face. His hands twitched as he responded to whatever the message was. 

Eridan waited. Dirk liked to think he could multi-task, but if Eridan tried to talk to him while he was talking to someone else, he got the conversations mixed up and all of a sudden he typed what he meant to say and said what he meant to type. Eridan wasn’t making that mistake again.

Dirk plugged his shades back in with entirely too much violence for someone who had just had middle-of-the-night sex.

‘Wwhat’s happenin’?’

‘Brobot’s infatuated with Gamzee and he thinks Arquiusprite and I are just saying that to piss him off, like we don’t know what we’re like when we have a crush.’

‘Wwhy is that a problem noww?’

‘Because he’s so focused on “guarding” him that the tiny percent of CPU he’s left to listen out for your murder noises got set off by your purrs. What a dickhead.’

Eridan couldn’t help but purr louder. Dirk’s ridiculous self-hatred was stupidly endearing. And it was incredibly gratifying that he didn’t let it get any more serious than exasperation now. Eridan liked to think he’d helped. 

‘I blame you, you know,’ Dirk said sleepily. 

‘Wwhat for?’ you ask.

‘You made him sound hot. Hot and dangerous and Brobot feels obliged to keep him tied up. If he wasn’t pretending to be so inconvenienced by it I’d be happy for him.’

‘No, you wwouldn’t.’

Dirk shrugged under Eridan. 

‘Hey,’ Eridan said.

‘Mmm?’ Dirk said.

‘Noww that we’vve found Gam, does that mean Davve’s gonna fast-forwward us?’

‘That was the plan.’

‘There’s gonna be lots a people …’

‘Hmmm.’

‘Wwill you still wwant me?’

Dirk’s eyes flew open. 

‘Fuck, Eridan, of course I will. How long you been sitting on that one?’

‘I’m no one’s first choice.’

‘Jesus. I’m going over to the cell first thing in the morning and stabbing that clown in his stupid death-resistant face. You’re mine, Eridan, I’m keeping you. Tell me when you’re feeling doubtey, babe, I’ll night-fuck you anytime if that’s what you need.’

‘That’s not what this wwas about,’ Eridan said. 

‘Yeah, well, I’m still up for it whenever.’ Dirks arms tightened around Eridan. ‘I love you.’

‘Lovve you, too.’

‘I could listen to you say that forever. And only, like, 40% because of the ‘v’ thing.’

‘You’re such a dick, wwhy do I evven put up wwith you?’

‘Because you  _ lov-ve _ me,’ Dirk said, rolling on top of Eridan to kiss him all over his face. Eridan squirmed away, but weakly, so Dirk would keep kissing him. Dirk flopped down and mouthed absently at the edges of Eridan’s fins, a habit he refused to drop, or even keep confined to private. The first time he’d done it in front of Karkat, Eridan thought he might just melt in shame (but also a bit in pride, because Dirk was being affectionate and possessive of him, in public, where anyone could see, even though Dirk was a god and Eridan was just Eridan).

‘Hey, Dan,’ Dirk said, not even taking his mouth away from his fin, just talking around it.

‘Mmm?’

‘I’m all awake now, your serious conversation woke me up.’

‘Mmm …’

‘So, logically, you should let me have sex with you again so I can get all the sleepy hormones from the orgasm. It’s solid science, babe, you gotta appreciate the science.’

‘Jeez, Dirk … you’re gonna havve to convvince me, I think.’

Dirk finally released his fin to kiss him on the nose, then the mouth, before disappearing under the covers.

‘You’re fuckin’ crazy,’ Eridan breathed as Dirk kissed gently at his sheath.

‘Yeah, crazy for your bulge,’ Dirk said, voice muffled under the sheets. 

Eridan decided to stop making conversation with his insane human. Dirk didn’t need any help finding an excuse to talk and right now there was a much better use for his mouth.


End file.
